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HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN   &   COMPANY, 

BOSTON   AND  NEW  YORK. 


OUR   HUNDRED    DAYS 
IN  EUROPE 


BY 


OLIVER  WENDELL  HpLMES 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 


1887 


CONTENTS. 


INTRODUCTORY. 
A  PROSPECTIVE  VISIT 1 

OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 
I. 

THE  VOYAGE.  —  LIVERPOOL.  —  CHESTER.  —  LONDON.  — 
EPSOM 13 

II. 
EPSOM.  —  LONDON.  —  WINDSOR 57 

III. 

LONDON.  —  ISLE  OF  WIGHT.  —  CAMBRIDGE.  —  OXFORD. 
—  YORK.  —  EDINBURGH 99 

IV. 

STRATFORD-ON-AVON.  —  GREAT  MALVERN.  —  TEWKES- 
BURY.  —  BATH.  —  SALISBURY.  —  STONEHENGE    .        .  138 

V. 

STONEHENOE.  —  SALISBURY.  —  OLD  SARUM.  —  BEMEB- 
TON.  —  BRIGHTON 173 

VI. 

LONDON  ....  207 


iv  CONTENTS. 

vn. 

BOULOGNE.  —  PARIS.  —  LONDON.  —  LIVERPOOL.  —  THE 
HOMEWARD  PASSAGE 246 

VIII. 

GENERAL    IMPRESSIONS.  —  MISCELLANEOUS    OBSERVA- 

• .279 


INTRODUCTORY. 

A  PROSPECTIVE   VISIT. 


AFTER  an  interval  of  more  than  fifty  years 
I  propose  taking  a  second  look  at  some  parts  of 
Europe.  It  is  a  Rip  Van  Winkle  experiment 
which  I  am  promising  myself.  The  changes 
wrought  by  half  a  century  in  the  countries  I 
visited  amount  almost  to  a  transformation.  I 
left  the  England  of  William  the  Fourth,  of  the 
Duke  of  Wellington,  of  Sir  Robert  Peel ;  the 
France  of  Louis  Philippe,  of  Marshal  Soult,  of 
Thiers,  of  Guizot.  I  went  from  Manchester  to 
Liverpool  by  the  new  railroad,  the  only  one  I 
saw  in  Europe.  I  looked  upon  England  from 
the  box  of  a  stage-coach,  upon  France  from  the 
coupe  of  a  diligence,  upon  Italy  from  the  cush 
ion  of  a  carrozza.  The  broken  windows  of 
Apsley  House  were  still  boarded  up  when  I  was 
in  London.  The  asphalt  pavement  was  not  laid 


2  INTRODUCTORY. 

in  Paris.  The  Obelisk  of  Luxor  was  lying  in 
its  great  boat  in  the  Seine,  as  I  remember  it. 
I  did  not  see  it  erected ;  it  must  have  been  an 
exciting  scene  to  witness,  the  engineer  standing 
underneath,  so  as  to  be  crushed  by  the  great 
stone  if  it  disgraced  him  by  falling  in  the  pro 
cess.  As  for  the  dynasties  which  have  overlaid 
each  other  like  Dr.  Schliemann's  Trojan  cities, 
there  is  no  need  of  moralizing  over  a  history 
which  instead  of  Finis  is  constantly  ending  with 
What  next? 

With  regard  to  the  changes  in  the  general 
conditions  of  society  and  the  advance  in  human 
knowledge,  think  for  one  moment  what  fifty 
years  have  done!  I  have  often  imagined  my 
self  escorting  some  wise  man  of  the  past  to  our 
Saturday  Club,  where  we  often  have  distin 
guished  strangers  as  our  guests.  Suppose  there 
sat  by  me,  I  will  not  say  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  for  he 
has  been  too  long  away  from  us,  but  that  other 
great  man,  whom  Professor  Tyndall  names  as 
next  to  him  in  intellectual  stature,  as  he  passes 
along  the  line  of  master  minds  of  his  country, 
from  the  days  of  Newton  to  our  own,  —  Dr. 
Thomas  Young,  who  died  in  1829.  Would  he 


A  PROSPECTIVE   VISIT.  3 

or  I  be  the  listener,  if  we  were  side  by  side  ? 
However  humble  I  might  feel  in  such  a  pre 
sence,  I  should  be  so  clad  in  the  grandeur  of 
the  new  discoveries,  inventions,  ideas,  I  had  to 
impart  to  him  that  I  should  seem  to  myself 
like  the  ambassador  of  an  Emperor.  I  should 
tell  him  of  the  ocean  steamers,  the  railroads 
that  spread  themselves  like  cobwebs  over  the 
civilized  and  half-civilized  portions  of  the  earth, 
the  telegraph  and  the  telephone,  the  photograph 
and  the  spectroscope.  I  should  hand  him  a 
paper  with  the  morning  news  from  London  to 
read  by  the  electric  light,  I  should  startle  him 
with  a  friction  match,  I  should  amaze  him  with 
the  incredible  truths  about  anaesthesia,  I  should 
astonish  him  with  the  later  conclusions  of 
geology,  I  should  dazzle  him  by  the  fully  devel 
oped  law  of  the  correlation  of  forces,  I  should 
delight  him  with  the  cell-doctrine,  I  should  con 
found  him  with  the  revolutionary  apocalypse  of 
Darwinism.  All  this  change  in  the  aspects, 
position,  beliefs,  of  humanity  since  the  time  of 
Dr.  Young's  death,  the  date  of  my  own  gradua 
tion  from  college ! 

I  ought  to  consider  myself  highly  favored  to 


4  INTRODUCTORY. 

have  lived  through  such  a  half  century.  But  it 
seems  to  me  that  in  walking  the  streets  of  Lon 
don  and  Paris  I  shall  revert  to  my  student  days, 
and  appear  to  myself  like  a  relic  of  a  former 
generation.  Those  who  have  been  born  into  the 
inheritance  of  the  new  civilization  feel  very  dif 
ferently  about  it  from  those  who  have  lived  their 
way  into  it.  To  the  young  and  those  approach 
ing  middle  age  all  these  innovations  in  life  and 
thought  are  as  natural,  as  much  a  matter  of 
course,  as  the  air  they  breathe ;  they  form  a  part 
of  the  inner  framework  of  their  intelligence, 
about  which  their  mental  life  is  organized.  To 
men  and  women  of  more  than  threescore  and 
ten  they  are  external  accretions,  like  the  shell  of 
a  mollusk,  the  jointed  plates  of  an  articulate. 
This  must  be  remembered  in  reading  anything 
written  by  those  who  knew  the  century  in  its 
teens ;  it  is  not  likely  to  be  forgotten,  for  the 
fact  betrays  itself  in  all  the  writer's  thoughts 
and  expressions. 

The  story  of  my  first  visit  to  Europe  is  briefly 
this :  my  object  was  to  study  the  medical  pro 
fession,  chiefly  in  Paris,  and  I  was  in  Europe 
about  two  years  and  a  half,  from  April,  1833,  to 


A  PROSPECTIVE   VISIT.  5 

October,  1835.  I  sailed  in  the  packet  ship  Phil 
adelphia  from  New  York  for  Portsmouth,  where 
we  arrived  after  a  passage  of  twenty-four  days. 
A  week  was  spent  in  visiting  Southampton, 
Salisbury,  Stonehenge,  Wilton,  and  the  Isle  of 
Wight.  I  then  crossed  the  Channel  to  Havre, 
from  which  I  went  to  Paris.  In  the  spring  and 
summer  of  1834  I  made  my  principal  visit  to 
England  and  Scotland.  There  were  other  ex 
cursions  to  the  Rhine  and  to  Holland,  to  Swit 
zerland  and  to  Italy,  but  of  these  I  need  say 
nothing  here.  I  returned  in  the  packet  ship 
Utica,  sailing  from  Havre,  and  reaching  New 
York  after  a  passage  of  forty-two  days. 

A  few  notes  from  my  recollections  will  serve 
to  recall  the  period  of  my  first  visit  to  Europe, 
and  form  a  natural  introduction  to  the  experi 
ences  of  my  second.  I  take  those  circumstances 
which  happen  to  suggest  themselves. 

After  a  short  excursion  to  Strasbourg,  down 
the  Rhine,  and  through  Holland,  a  small  steamer 
took  us  from  Rotterdam  across  the  Channel,  and 
we  found  ourselves  in  the  British  capital. 

The  great  sight  in  London  is  —  London.  No 
man  understands  himself  as  an  infinitesimal 


6  INTRODUCTORY. 

until  he  has  been  a  drop  in  that  ocean,  a  grain 
of  sand  on  that  sea-margin,  a  mote  in  its  sun 
beam,  or  the  fog  or  smoke  which  stands  for  it ; 
in  plainer  phrase,  a  unit  among  its  millions. 

I  had  two  letters  to  persons  in  England :  one 
to  kind  and  worthy  Mr.  Petty  Yaughan,  who 
asked  me  to  dinner  ;  one  to  pleasant  Mr.  Wil 
liam  Clift,  conservator  of  the  Hunterian  Mu 
seum,  who  asked  me  to  tea. 

To  Westminster  Abbey.  What  a  pity  it 
could  not  borrow  from  Paris  the  towers  of  Notre 
Dame !  But  the  glory  of  its  interior  made  up 
for  this  shortcoming.  Among  the  monuments, 
one  to  Rear  Admiral  Charles  Holmes,  a  hand 
some  young  man,  standing  by  a  cannon.  He 
accompanied  Wolfe  in  his  expedition  which  re 
sulted  in  the  capture  of  Quebec.  Dryden  has 
immortalized  him,  in  the  "  Annus  Mirabilis,"  as 

''the  Achates  of  the  general's  fight." 

My  relative,  I  will  take  it  for  granted,  as  I  find 
him  in  Westminster  Abbey.  Blood  is  thicker 
than  water,  —  and  warmer  than  marble,  I  said 
to  myself,  as  I  laid  my  hand  on  the  cold  stone 
image  of  the  once  famous  Admiral. 

To  the  Tower,  to  see  the  lions,  —  of  all  sorts. 


A  PROSPECTIVE    VISIT.  1 

There  I  found  a  "  poor  relation,"  who  made  my 
acquaintance  without  introduction.  A  large 
baboon,  or  ape,  —  some  creature  of  that  family, 
—  was  sitting  at  the  open  door  of  his  cage,  when 
I  gave  him  offence  by  approaching  too  near  and 
inspecting  him  too  narrowly.  He  made  a  spring 
at  me,  and  if  the  keeper  had  not  pulled  me 
back  would  have  treated  me  unhandsomely, 
like  a  quadrumanous  rough,  as  he  was.  He  suc 
ceeded  in  stripping  my  waistcoat  of  its  buttons, 
as  one  would  strip  a  pea-pod  of  its  peas. 

To  Vauxhall  Gardens.  All  Americans  went 
there  in  those  days,  as  they  go  to  Madame  Tus- 
saud's  in  these  times.  There  were  fireworks  and 
an  exhibition  of  polar  scenery.  «« Mr.  Collins,  the 
English  PAGANINI,"  treated  us  to  music  on  his 
violin.  A  comic  singer  gave  us  a  song,  of  which 
I  remember  the  line, 

"  You  11  find  it  all  in  the  agony  bill." 

This  referred  to  a  bill  proposed  by  Sir  Andrew 
Agnew,  a  noted  Scotch  Sabbatarian  agitator. 

To  the  opera  to  hear  Grisi.  The  king,  "Wil 
liam  the  Fourth,  was  in  his  box ;  also  the  Prin 
cess  Victoria,  with  the  Duchess  of  Kent.  The 
king  tapped  with  his  white-gloved  hand  on  the 


8  INTRODUCTORY. 

ledge  of  the  box  when  he  was  pleased  with  the 
singing.  —  To  a  morning  concert  and  heard  the 
real  Paganini.  To  one  of  the  lesser  theatres  and 
heard  a  monologue  by  the  elder  Mathews,  who 
died  a  year  or  two  after  this  time.  To  another 
theatre,  where  I  saw  Listen  in  Paul  Pry.  Is  it 
not  a  relief  that  I  am  abstaining  from  descrip 
tion  of  what  everybody  has  heard  described  ? 

To  Windsor.  Machinery  to  the  left  of  the 
road.  Recognized  it  instantly,  by  recollection 
of  the  plate  in  "Rees's  Cyclopedia,"  as  Her- 
schel's  great  telescope.  —  Oxford.  Saw  only  its 
outside.  I  knew  no  one  there,  and  no  one  knew 
me.  —  Blenheim,  —  the  Titians  best  remem 
bered  of  its  objects  on  exhibition.  The  great 
Derby  day  of  the  Epsom  races.  Went  to  the 
race  with  a  coach-load  of  friends  and  acquaint 
ances.  Plenipotentiary,  the  winner,  "  rode  by 
P.  Connelly."  So  says  Herring's  picture  of  him, 
now  before  me.  Chestnut,  a  great  "  bullock  " 
of  a  horse,  who  easily  beat  the  twenty-two  that 
started.  Every  New  England  deacon  ought  to 
see  one  Derby  day  to  learn  what  sort  of  a  world 
this  is  he  lives  in.  Man  is  a  sporting  as  well  as 
a  praying  animal. 


A    PROSPECTIVE   VISIT.  9 

Stratford-on-Avon.  Emotions,  but  no  scrib 
bling  of  name  on  walls.  —  Warwick.  The  cas 
tle.  A  village  festival,  "  The  Opening  of  the 
Meadows,"  a  true  exhibition  of  the  semi-bar 
barism  which  had  come  down  from  Saxon 
times.  — Yorkshire.  "  The  Hangman's  Stone." 
Story  told  in  my  book  called  the  "  Autocrat," 
etc.  York  Cathedral.  —  Northumberland.  Aln- 
wick  Castle.  The  figures  on  the  walls  which  so 
frightened  my  man  John  when  he  ran  away 
from  Scotland  in  his  boyhood. 

Berwick-on-Tweed.  A  regatta  going  on  ;  a 
very  pretty  show.  Scotland.  Most  to  be  re 
membered,  the  incomparable  loveliness  of  Edin 
burgh. —  Sterling.  The  view  of  the  Links  of 
Forth  from  the  castle.  The  whole  country  full 
of  the  romance  of  history  and  poetry.  Made 
one  acquaintance  in  Scotland,  Dr.  Robert  Knox, 
who  asked  my  companion  and  myself  to  break 
fast.  I  was  treated  to  five  entertainments  in 
Great  Britain :  the  breakfast  just  mentioned  ; 
lunch  with  Mrs.  Macadam,  —  the  good  old  lady 
gave  me  bread,  and  not  a  stone ;  dinner  with 
Mr.  Vaughan ;  one  with  Mr.  Stanley,  the  sur 
geon  ;  tea  with  Mr.  Clif t,  —  for  all  which  at- 


10  INTRODUCTORY. 

tentions  I  was  then  and  am  still  grateful,  for 
they  were  more  than  I  had  any  claim  to  expect. 
Fascinated  with  Edinburgh.  Strolls  by  Salis 
bury  Crag ;  climb  to  the  top  of  Arthur's  Seat ; 
delight  of  looking  up  at  the  grand  old  castle,  of 
looking  down  on  Holyrood  Palace,  of  watching 
the  groups  on  Calton  Hill,  wandering  in  the 
quaint  old  streets  and  sauntering  on  the  side 
walks  of  the  noble  avenues,  even  at  that  time 
adding  beauty  to  the  new  city.  The  weeks  I 
spent  in  Edinburgh  are  among  the  most  memo 
rable  of  my  European  experiences.  To  the 
Highlands,  to  the  Lakes,  in  short  excursions ; 
to  Glasgow,  seen  to  disadvantage  under  gray 
skies  and  with  slippery  pavements.  Through 
England  rapidly  to  Dover  and  to  Calais,  where  I 
found  the  name  of  M.  Dessein  still  belonging  to 
the  hotel  I  sought,  and  where  I  read  Sterne's 
"  Preface  Written  in  a  Desobligeante,"  sitting 
in  the  vehicle  most  like  one  that  I  could  find  in 
the  stable.  From  Calais  back  to  Paris,  where  I 
began  working  again. 

All  my  travelling  experiences,  including  a 
visit  to  Switzerland  and  Italy  in  the  summer  and 
autumn  of  1835,  were  merely  interludes  of  my 


A  PROSPECTIVE   VISIT.  11 

student  life  in  Paris.  On  my  return  to  America, 
after  a  few  years  of  hospital  and  private  prac 
tice,  I  became  a  Professor  in  Harvard  Univer 
sity,  teaching  Anatomy  and  Physiology,  after 
wards  Anatomy  alone,  for  the  period  of  thirty- 
five  years,  during  part  of  which  time  I  paid 
some  attention  to  literature,  and  became  some 
what  known  as  the  author  of  several  works  in 
prose  and  verse  which  have  been  well  received. 
My  prospective  visit  will  not  be  a  professional 
one,  as  I  resigned  my  office  in  1882,  and  am  no 
longer  known  chiefly  as  a  teacher  or  a  practi 
tioner. 
BOSTON,  April,  1886. 


OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 


I. 

I  BEGIN  this  record  with  the  columnar,  self- 
reliant  capital  letter  to  signify  that  there  is  no 
disguise  in  its  egoisms.  If  it  were  a  chapter  of 
autobiography,  this  is  what  the  reader  would 
look  for  as  a  matter  of  course.  Let  him  con 
sider  it  as  being  such  a  chapter,  and  its  egoisms 
will  require  no  apology. 

I  have  called  the  record  our  hundred  days, 
because  I  was  accompanied  by  my  daughter, 
without  the  aid  of  whose  younger  eyes  and  live 
lier  memory,  and  especially  of  her  faithful  diary, 
which  no  fatigue  or  indisposition  was  allowed 
to  interrupt,  the  whole  experience  would  have 
remained  in  my  memory  as  a  photograph  out  of 
focus. 

We  left  Boston  on  the  29th  of  April,  1886, 
and  reached  New  York  on  the  29th  of  August, 
four  months  of  absence  in  all,  of  which  nearly 


14        OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

three  weeks  were  taken  up  by  the  two  passages, 
one  week  was  spent  in  Paris,  and  the  rest  of 
the  time  in  England  and  Scotland. 

No  one  was  so  much  surprised  as  myself  at 
my  undertaking  this  visit.  Mr.  Gladstone,  a 
strong  man  for  his  years,  is  reported  as  saying 
that  he  is  too  old  to  travel,  at  least  to  cross  the 
ocean,  and  he  is  younger  than  I  am,  —  just  four 
months,  to  a  day,  younger.  It  is  true  that  Sir 
Henry  Holland  came  to  this  country,  and  tra 
velled  freely  about  the  world,  after  he  was  eighty 
years  old ;  but  his  pitcher  went  to  the  well  once 
too  often,  and  met  the  usual  doom  of  fragile  ar 
ticles.  When  my  friends  asked  me  why  I  did 
not  go  to  Europe,  I  reminded  them  of  the  fate 
of  Thomas  Parr.  He  was  only  twice  my  age, 
and  was  getting  on  finely  towards  his  two  hun 
dredth  year,  when  the  Earl  of  Arundel  carried 
him  up  to  London,  and,  being  feasted  and  made 
a  lion  of,  he  found  there  a  premature  and  early 
grave  at  the  age  of  only  one  hundred  and  fifty- 
two  years.  He  lies  in  Westminster  Abbey,  it  is 
true,  but  he  would  probably  have  preferred  the 
upper  side  of  his  own  hearth-stone  to  the  under 
side  of  the  slab  which  covers  him. 


THE   VOYAGE.  15 

I  should  never  have  thought  of  such  an  expe 
dition  if  it  had  not  been  suggested  by  a  mem 
ber  of  my  family  that  I  should  accompany  my 
daughter,  who  was  meditating  a  trip  to  Europe. 
I  remembered  how  many  friends  had  told  me 
I  ought  to  go  ;  among  the  rest,  Mr.  Emerson, 
who  had  spoken  to  me  repeatedly  about  it.  I 
had  not  seen  Europe  for  more  than  half  a  cen 
tury,  and  I  had  a  certain  longing  for  one  more 
sight  of  the  places  I  remembered,  and  others  it 
would  be  a  delight  to  look  upon.  There  were  a 
few  living  persons  whom  I  wished  to  meet.  I 
was  assured  that  I  should  be  kindly  received  in 
England.  All  this  was  tempting  enough,  but 
there  was  an  obstacle  in  the  way  which  I  feared, 
and,  as  it  proved,  not  without  good  reason.  I 
doubted  whether  I  could  possibly  breathe  in  a 
narrow  state-room.  In  certain  localities  I  have 
found  myself  liable  to  attacks  of  asthma,  and, 
although  I  had  not  had  one  for  years,  I  felt  sure 
that  I  could  not  escape  it  if  I  tried  to  sleep  in  a 
state-room.  I  did  not  escape  it,  and  I  am  glad 
to  tell  my  story  about  it,  because  it  excuses  some 
of  my  involuntary  social  shortcomings,  and  ena 
bles  me  to  thank  collectively  all  those  kind  mem- 


16        OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

bers  of  the  profession  who  trained  all  the  artil 
lery  of  the  pharmacopoeia  upon  my  troublesome 
enemy,  from  bicarbonate  of  soda  and  Vichy 
water  to  arsenic  and  dynamite.  One  costly  con 
trivance,  sent  me  by  the  Keverend  Mr.  Haweis, 
whom  I  have  never  duly  thanked  for  it,  looked 
more  like  an  angelic  trump  for  me  to  blow  in  a 
better  world  than  what  I  believe  it  is,  an  inhal 
ing  tube  intended  to  prolong  my  mortal  respira 
tion.  The  best  thing  in  my  experience  was  rec 
ommended  to  me  by  an  old  friend  in  London. 
It  was  Himrod's  asthma  cure,  one  of  the  many 
powders,  the  smoke  of  which  when  burning  is  in 
haled.  It  is  made  in  Providence,  Rhode  Island, 
and  I  had  to  go  to  London  to  find  it.  It  never 
failed  to  give  at  least  temporary  relief,  but  noth 
ing  enabled  me  to  sleep  in  my  state-room,  though 
I  had  it  all  to  myself,  the  upper  berth  being 
removed.  After  the  first  night  and  part  of  the 
second,  I  never  lay  down  at  all  while  at  sea. 
The  captain  allowed  me  to  have  a  candle  and  sit 
up  in  the  saloon,  where  I  worried  through  the 
night  as  I  best  might.  How  could  I  be  in  a 
fit  condition  to  accept  the  attention  of  my 
friends  in  Liverpool,  after  sitting  up  every  night 


THE   VOYAGE.  17 

for  more  than  a  week  ;  and  how  could  I  be  in  a 
mood  for  the  catechizing  of  interviewers,  without 
having  once  lain  down  during  the  whole  return 
passage  ?  I  hope  the  reader  will  see  why  I  men 
tion  these  facts.  They  explain  and  excuse  many 
things  ;  they  have  been  alluded  to,  sometimes 
with  exaggeration,  in  the  newspapers,  and  I 
could  not  tell  my  story  fairly  without  mention 
ing  them.  I  got  along  well  enough  as  soon  as  I 
landed,  and  have  had  no  return  of  the  trouble 
since  I  have  been  back  in  my  own  home.  I  will 
not  advertise  an  assortment  of  asthma  remedies 
for  sale,  but  I  assure  my  kind  friends  I  have  had 
no  use  for  any  one  of  them  since  I  have  walked 
the  Boston  pavements,  drank,  not  the  Cochitu- 
ate,  but  the  Belmout  spring  water,  and  breathed 
the  lusty  air  of  my  native  northeasters. 

My  companion  and  I  required  an  attendant, 
and  we  found  one  of  those  useful  androgynous 
personages  known  as  courier-maids,  who  had 
travelled  with  friends  of  ours,  and  who  was  ready 
to  start  with  us  at  a  moment's  warning.  She 
was  of  English  birth,  lively,  short-gaited,  ser 
viceable,  more  especially  in  the  first  of  her  dual 
capacities.  So  far  as  my  wants  were  concerned, 


18        OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

I  found  her  zealous  and  active  in  providing  for 
my  comfort. 

It  was  no  sooner  announced  in  the  papers  that 
I  was  going  to  England  than  I  began  to  hear  of 
preparations  to  welcome  me.  An  invitation  to 
a  club  meeting  was  cabled  across  the  Atlantic. 
One  of  my  countrywomen  who  has  a  house  in 
London  made  an  engagement  for  me  to  meet 
friends  at  her  residence.  A  reverend  friend, 
who  thought  I  had  certain  projects  in  my  head, 
wrote  to  me  about  lecturing :  where  I  should  ap 
pear,  what  fees  I  should  obtain,  and  such  busi 
ness  matters.  I  replied  that  I  was  going  to 
England  to  spend  money,  not  to  make  it ;  to  hear 
speeches,  very  possibly,  but  not  to  make  them  ; 
to  revisit  scenes  I  had  known  in  my  younger 
days  ;  to  get  a  little  change  of  my  routine,  which 
I  certainly  did ;  and  to  enjoy  a  little  rest,  which 
I  as  certainly  did  not,  at  least  in  London.  In 
a  word,  I  wished  a  short  vacation,  and  had  no 
thought  of  doing  anything  more  important  than 
rubbing  a  little  rust  off  and  enjoying  myself, 
while  at  the  same  time  I  could  make  my  com 
panion's  visit  somewhat  pleasanter  than  it  would 
be  if  she  went  without  me.  The  visit  has  an- 


THE    VOYAGE.  19 

swered  most  of  its  purposes  for  both  of  us,  and 
if  we  have  saved  a  few  recollections  which  our 
friends  can  take  any  pleasure  in  reading,  this 
slight  record  may  be  considered  a  work  of  super 
erogation. 

The  Cephalonia  was  to  sail  at  half  past  six  in 
the  morning,  and  at  that  early  hour  a  company 
of  well-wishers  was  gathered  on  the  wharf  at 
East  Boston  to  bid  us  good-by.  We  took  with 
us  many  tokens  of  their  thoughtful  kindness ; 
flowers  and  fruits  from  Boston  and  Cambridge, 
and  a  basket  of  champagne  from  a  Concord 
friend  whose  company  is  as  exhilarating  as  the 
sparkling  wine  he  sent  us.  With  the  other  gifts 
came  a  small  tin  box,  about  as  big  as  a  common 
round  wooden  match  box.  I  supposed  it  to  hold 
some  pretty  gimcrack,  sent  as  a  pleasant  part 
ing  token  of  remembrance.  It  proved  to  be  a 
most  valued  daily  companion,  useful  at  all  times, 
never  more  so  than  when  the  winds  were  blow 
ing  hard  and  the  ship  was  struggling  with  the 
waves.  There  must  have  been  some  magic 
secret  in  it,  for  I  am  sure  that  I  looked  five 
years  younger  after  closing  that  little  box  than 


20        OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

when  I  opened  it.     Time  will  explain  its  myste 
rious  power. 

All  the  usual  provisions  for  comfort  made  by 
sea-going  experts  we  had  attended  to.  Imper 
meable  rugs  and  fleecy  shawls,  head-gear  to 
defy  the  rudest  northeasters,  sea-chairs  of  ample 
dimensions,  which  we  took  care  to  place  in  as 
sheltered  situations  as  we  could  find,  —  all  these 
were  a  matter  of  course.  Everybody  stays  on 
deck  as  much  as  possible,  and  lies  wrapped  up 
and  spread  out  at  full  length  on  his  or  her  sea- 
chair,  so  that  the  deck  looks  as  if  it  had  a  row 
of  mummies  on  exhibition.  Nothing  is  more 
comfortable,  nothing,  I  should  say,  more  indis 
pensable,  than  a  hot- water  bag,  —  or  rather, 
two  hot-water  bags;  for  they  will  burst  some 
times,  as  I  found  out,  and  a  passenger  who  has 
become  intimate  with  one  of  these  warm  bosom 
friends  feels  its  loss  almost  as  if  it  were  human. 

Passengers  carry  all  sorts  of  luxuries  on  board, 
in  the  firm  faith  that  they  shall  be  able  to  profit 
by  them  all.  Friends  send  them  various  indi- 
gestibles.  To  many  all  these  well-meant  prepa 
rations  soon  become  a  mockery,  almost  an  insult. 
It  is  a  clear  case  of  /S7c(&)  vos  non  vobis.  The 


THE   VOYAGE.  21 

tougher  neighbor  is  the  gainer  by  these  acts  of 
kindness  ;  the  generosity  of  a  sea-sick  sufferer 
in  giving  away  the  delicacies  which  seemed  so 
desirable  on  starting  is  not  ranked  very  high 
on  the  books  of  the  recording  angel.  With  us 
three  things  were  best :  grapes,  oranges,  and 
especially  oysters,  of  which  we  had  provided  a 
half  barrel  in  the  shell.  The  "  butcher  "  of  the 
ship  opened  them  fresh  for  us  every  day,  and 
they  were  more  acceptable  than  anything  else. 

Among  our  ship's  company  were  a  number  of 
family  relatives  and  acquaintances.  We  formed 
a  natural  group  at  one  of  the  tables,  where  we 
met  in  more  or  less  complete  numbers.  I 
myself  never  missed ;  my  companion,  rarely. 
Others  were  sometimes  absent,  and  sometimes 
came  to  time  when  they  were  in  a  very  doubtful 
state,  looking  as  if  they  were  saying  to  them 
selves,  with  Lear,  — 

"  Down,  thou  climbing  sorrow, 
Thy  element  's  below." 

As  for  the  intellectual  condition  of  the  passen 
gers,  I  should  say  that  faces  were  prevailingly 
vacuous,  their  owners  half  hypnotized,  as  it 
seemed,  by  the  monotonous  throb  and  tremor  of 


22        OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

the  great  sea-monster  on  whose  back  we  were 
riding.  I  myself  had  few  thoughts,  fancies, 
emotions.  One  thing  above  all  struck  me  as 
never  before,  —  the  terrible  solitude  of  the 
ocean. 

"  So  lonely  'twas  that  God  himself 
Scarce  seemed  there  to  be." 

Whole  days  passed  without  our  seeing  a  single 
sail.  The  creatures  of  the  deep  which  gather 
around  sailing  vessels  are  perhaps  frightened 
off  by  the  noise  and  stir  of  the  steamship.  At 
any  rate,  we  saw  nothing  more  than  a  few  por 
poises,  so  far  as  I  remember. 

No  man  can  find  himself  over  the  abysses, 
the  floor  of  which  is  paved  with  wrecks  and 
white  with  the  bones  of  the  shrieking  myriads 
of  human  beings  whom  the  waves  have  swallowed 
up,  without  some  thought  of  the  dread  possibili 
ties  hanging  over  his  fate.  There  is  only  one 
way  to  get  rid  of  them  :  that  which  an  old  sea- 
captain  mentioned  to  me,  namely,  to  keep  one's 
self  under  opiates  until  he  wakes  up  in  the 
harbor  where  he  is  bound.  I  did  not  take  this 
as  serious  advice,  but  its  meaning  is  that  one 
who  has  all  his  senses  about  him  cannot  help 


THE   VOYAGE.  23 

being  anxious.  My  old  friend,  whose  beard 
had  been  shaken  in  many  a  tempest,  knew  too 
well  that  there  is  cause  enough  for  anxiety. 

What  does  the  reader  suppose  was  the  source 
of  the  most  ominous  thought  which  forced  itself 
upon  my  mind,  as  I  walked  the  decks  of  the 
mighty  vessel?  Not  the  sound  of  the  rushing 
winds,  nor  the  sight  of  the  foam-crested  billows  ; 
not  the  sense  of  the  awful  imprisoned  force 
which  was  wrestling  in  the  depths  below  me. 
The  ship  is  made  to  struggle  with  the  elements, 
and  the  giant  has  been  tamed  to  obedience,  and 
is  manacled  in  bonds  which  an  earthquake 
would  hardly  rend  asunder.  No !  It  was  the 
sight  of  the  boats  hanging  along  at  the  sides  of 
the  deck,  —  the  boats,  always  suggesting  the 
fearful  possibility  that  before  another  day  dawns 
one  may  be  tossing  about  in  the  watery  Sahara, 
shelterless,  fireless,  almost  foodless,  with  a  fate 
before  him  he  dares  not  contemplate.  No  doubt 
we  should  feel  worse  without  the  boats ;  still 
they  are  dreadful  tell-tales.  To  all  who  re 
member  Gericault's  Wreck  of  the  Medusa, — 
and  those  who  have  seen  it  do  not  forget  it,  — 
the  picture  the  mind  draws  is  one  it  shudders  at. 


24        OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

To  be  sure,  the  poor  wretches  in  the  painting 
were  on  a  raft,  but  to  think  of  fifty  people  in 
one  of  these  open  boats !  Let  us  go  down  into 
the  cabin,  where  at  least  we  shall  not  see  them. 

The  first  morning  at  sea  revealed  the  mystery 
of  the  little  round  tin  box.  The  process  of  shav 
ing,  never  a  delightful  one,  is  a  very  unpleasant 
and  awkward  piece  of  business  when  the  floor 
on  which  one  stands,  the  glass  in  which  he  looks, 
and  he  himself  are  all  describing  those  complex 
curves  which  make  cycles  and  epicycles  seem 
like  simplicity  itself.  The  little  box  contained 
a  reaping  machine,  which  gathered  the  capillary 
harvest  of  the  past  twenty-four  hours  with  a 
thoroughness,  a  rapidity,  a  security,  and  a  facil 
ity  which  were  a  surprise,  almost  a  revelation. 
The  idea  of  a  guarded  cutting  edge  is  an  old  one ; 
I  remember  the  "  Plantagenet  "  razor,  so  called, 
with  the  comb-like  row  of  blunt  teeth,  leaving 
just  enough  of  the  edge  free  to  do  its  work.  But 
this  little  affair  had  a  blade  only  an  inch  and  a 
half  long  by  three  quarters  of  an  inch  wide.  It 
had  a  long  slender  handle,  which  took  apart  for 
packing,  and  was  put  together  with  the  greatest 
ease.  It  was,  in  short,  a  lawn-mower  for  the 


THE   VOYAGE.  25 

masculine  growth  of  which  the  proprietor  wishes 
to  rid  his  countenance.  The  mowing  operation 
required  no  glass,  could  be  performed  with  al 
most  reckless  boldness,  as  one  cannot  cut  him 
self,  and  in  fact  had  become  a  pleasant  amuse 
ment  instead  of  an  irksome  task.  I  have  never 
used  any  other  means  of  shaving  from  that  day 
to  this.  I  was  so  pleased  with  it  that  I  exhib 
ited  it  to  the  distinguished  tonsors  of  Burlington 
Arcade,  half  afraid  they  would  assassinate  me 
for  bringing  in  an  innovation  which  bid  fair  to 
destroy  their  business.  They  probably  took  me 
for  an  agent  of  the  manufacturers;  and  so  I 
was,  but  not  in  their  pay  nor  with  their  know 
ledge.  I  determined  to  let  other  persons  know 
what  a  convenience  I  had  found  the  "  Star 
Razor  "  of  Messrs.  Kampf,  of  New  York,  with 
out  fear  of  reproach  for  so  doing.  I  know  my 
danger,  —  does  not  Lord  Byron  say,  "  I  have 
even  been  accused  of  writing  puffs  for  Warren's 
blacking  "  ?  I  was  once  offered  pay  for  a  poem 
in  praise  of  a  certain  stove  polish,  but  I  de 
clined.  It  is  pure  good-will  to  my  race  which 
leads  me  to  commend  the  Star  Razor  to  all  who 
travel  by  land  or  by  sea,  as  well  as  to  all  who 
stay  at  home. 


26        OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

With  the  first  sight  of  land  many  a  passenger 
draws  a  long  sigh  of  relief.  Yet  everybody 
knows  that  the  worst  dangers  begin  after  we 
have  got  near  enough  to  see  the  shore,  for  there 
are  several  ways  of  landing,  not  all  of  which  are 
equally  desirable.  On  Saturday,  May  8th,  we 
first  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  Irish  coast,  and  at 
half  past  four  in  the  afternoon  we  reached  the 
harbor  of  Queenstown.  A  tug  came  off,  bring 
ing  newspapers,  letters,  and  so  forth,  among  the 
rest  some  thirty  letters  and  telegrams  for  me. 
This  did  not  look  much  like  rest,  but  this  was 
only  a  slight  prelude  to  what  was  to  follow.  I 
was  in  no  condition  to  go  on  shore  for  sight 
seeing,  as  some  of  the  passengers  did. 

We  made  our  way  through  the  fog  towards 
Liverpool,  and  arrived  at  1.30,  on  Sunday,  May 
9th.  A  special  tug  came  to  take  us  off :  on  it 
were  the  American  consul,  Mr.  Russell,  the 
vice-consul,  Mr.  Sewall,  Dr.  Nevins,  and  Mr. 
Rathbone,  who  came  on  behalf  of  our  as  yet 
unseen  friend,  Mr.  Willett,  of  Brighton,  England. 
Our  Liverpool  friends  were  meditating  more 
hospitalities  to  us  than,  in  our  fatigued  condition, 
we  were  equal  to  supporting.  They  very  kindly, 


LIVERPOOL.— CHESTER.  27 

however,  acquiesced  in  our  wishes,  which  were  for 
as  much  rest  as  we  could  possibly  get  before  any 
attempt  to  busy  ourselves  with  social  engage 
ments.  So  they  conveyed  us  to  the  Grand  Hotel 
for  a  short  time,  and  then  saw  us  safely  off  to 
the  station  to  take  the  train  for  Chester,  where 
we  arrived  in  due  season,  and  soon  found  our 
selves  comfortably  established  at  the  Grosvenor 
Arms  Hotel.  A  large  basket  of  Surrey  prim 
roses  was  brought  by  Mr.  Rathbone  to  my  com 
panion.  I  had  set  before  me  at  the  hotel  a  very 
handsome  floral  harp,  which  my  friend's  friend 
had  offered  me  as  a  tribute.  It  made  melody  in 
my  ears  as  sweet  as  those  hyacinths  of  Shelley's, 
the  music  of  whose  bells  was  so 

"  delicate,  soft,  and  intense, 
It  was  felt  like  an  odor  within  the  sense." 

At  Chester  we  had  the  blissful  security  of  being 
unknown,  and  were  left  to  ourselves.  Americans 
know  Chester  better  than  most  other  old  towns 
in  England,  because  they  so  frequently  stop 
there  awhile  on  their  way  from  Liverpool  to 
London.  It  has  a  mouldy  old  cathedral,  an  old 
wall,  partly  Roman,  strange  old  houses  with 
overhanging  upper  floors,  which  make  sheltered 


28        OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

sidewalks  and  dark  basements.  When  one  sees 
an  old  house  in  New  England  with  the  second 
floor  projecting  a  foot  or  two  beyond  the  wall  of 
the  ground  floor,  the  country  boy  will  tell  him 
that  "  them  haouses  was  built  so  th't  th'  folks  up 
stairs  could  shoot  the  Injins  when  they  was  try- 
in'  to  git  three w  th'  door  or  int'  th'  winder," 
There  are  plenty  of  such  houses  all  over  Eng 
land,  where  there  are  no  "  Injins "  to  shoot. 
But  the  story  adds  interest  to  the  somewhat 
lean  traditions  of  our  rather,  dreary  past,  and  it 
is  hardly  worth  while  to  disturb  it.  I  always 
heard  it  in  my  boyhood.  Perhaps  it  is  true  ; 
certainly  it  was  a  very  convenient  arrange 
ment  for  discouraging  an  untimely  visit.  The 
oval  lookouts  in  porches,  common  in  our  Essex 
County,  have  been  said  to  answer  a  similar  pur 
pose,  that  of  warning  against  the  intrusion  of 
undesirable  visitors.  The  walk  round  the  old 
wall  of  Chester  is  wonderfully  interesting  and 
beautiful.  At  one  part  it  overlooks  a  wide  level 
field,  over  which  the  annual  races  are  run.  I 
noticed  that  here  as  elsewhere  the  short  grass 
was  starred  with  daisies.  They  are  not  consid 
ered  in  place  in  a  well-kept  lawn.  But  remem- 


CHESTER.  — EATON  HALL.  29 

bering  the  cuckoo  song  in  Love's  Labour  Lost, 
"  When  daisies  pied  ...  do  paint  the  meadows 
with  delight,"  it  was  hard  to  look  at  them  as 
unwelcome  intruders. 

The  old  cathedral  seemed  to  me  particularly 
mouldy,  and  in  fact  too  high-flavored  with  an 
tiquity.  I  could  not  help  comparing  some  of 
the  ancient  cathedrals  and  abbey  churches  to  so 
many  old  cheeses.  They  have  a  tough  gray 
rind  and  a  rich  interior,  which  find  food  and 
lodging  for  numerous  tenants  who  live  and  die 
under  their  shelter  or  their  shadow,  —  lowly 
servitors  some  of  them,  portly  dignitaries  others, 
humble  holy  ministers  of  religion  many,  I  doubt 
not,  —  larvae  of  angels,  who  will  get  their  wings 
by  and  by.  It  is  a  shame  to  carry  the  compari 
son  so  far,  but  it  is  natural  enough ;  for  Cheshire 
cheeses  are  among  the  first  things  we  think  of 
as  we  enter  that  section  of  the  country,  and 
this  venerable  cathedral  is  the  first  that  greets 
the  eyes  of  great  numbers  of  Americans. 

We  drove  out  to  Eaton  Hall,  the  seat  of  the 
Duke  of  Westminster,  the  many-millioned  lord 
of  a  good  part  of  London.  It  is  a  palace,  high- 
roofed,  marble  -  columned,  vast,  magnificent, 


30        OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

everything  but  homelike,  and  perhaps  homelike 
to  persons  born  and  bred  in  such  edifices.  A 
painter  like  Paul  Veronese  finds  a  palace  like 
this  not  too  grand  for  his  banqueting  scenes. 
But  to  those  who  live,  as  most  of  us  do,  in 
houses  of  moderate  dimensions,  snug,  comfort 
able,  which  the  owner's  presence  fills  sufficiently, 
leaving  room  for  a  few  visitors,  a  vast  marble 
palace  is  disheartening  and  uninviting.  I  never 
get  into  a  very  large  and  lofty  saloon  without 
feeling  as  if  I  were  a  weak  solution  of  myself,  — 
my  personality  almost  drowned  out  in  the  flood 
of  space  about  me.  The  wigwam  is  more  home 
like  than  the  cavern.  Our  wooden  houses  are  a 
better  kind  of  wigwam  ;  the  marble  palaces  are 
artificial  caverns,  vast,  resonant,  chilling,  good 
to  visit,  not  desirable  to  live  in,  for  most  of  us. 
One's  individuality  should  betray  itself  in  all 
that  surrounds  him  ;  he  should  secrete  his  shell, 
like  a  mollusk ;  if  he  can  sprinkle  a  few  pearls 
through  it,  so  much  the  better.  It  is  best,  per 
haps,  that  one  should  avoid  being  a  duke  and 
living  in  a  palace,  —  that  is,  if  he  has  his  choice 
in  the  robing  chamber  where  souls  are  fitted 
with  their  earthly  garments. 


CHESTER.  — EATON  77 ALL.  31 

One  of  the  most  interesting  parts  of  my  visit 
to  Eaton  Hall  was  my  tour  tlirough  the  stables. 
The  Duke  is  a  famous  breeder  and  lover  of  the 
turf.  Mr.  Rathbone  and  myself  soon  made  the 
acquaintance  of  the  chief  of  the  stable  depart 
ment.  Readers  of  Homer  do  not  want  to  be  re 
minded  that  hippodamoio,  horse-subduer,  is  the 
genitive  of  an  epithet  applied  as  a  chief  honor 
to  the  most  illustrious  heroes.  It  is  the  last 
word  of  the  last  line  of  the  Iliad,  and  fitly  closes 
the  account  of  the  funeral  pageant  of  Hector,  the 
tamer  of  horses.  We  Americans  are  a  little  shy 
of  confessing  that  any  title  or  conventional  gran 
deur  makes  an  impression  upon  us.  If  at  home 
we  wince  before  any  official  with  a  sense  of 
blighted  inferiority,  it  is  by  general  confession 
the  clerk  at  the  hotel  office.  There  is  an  excuse 
for  this,  inasmuch  as  he  holds  our  destinies  in 
his  hands,  and  decides  whether,  in  case  of  acci 
dent,  we  shall  have  to  jump  from  the  third  or 
sixth  story  window.  Lesser  grandeurs  do  not 
find  us  very  impressible.  There  is,  however, 
something  about  the  man  who  deals  in  horses 
which  takes  down  the  spirit,  however  proud,  of 
him  who  is  unskilled  in  equestrian  matters  and 


32        OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

unused  to  the  horse-lover's  vocabulary.  We 
followed  the  master  of  the  stables,  meekly  listen 
ing  and  once  in  a  while  questioning.  I  had  to 
fall  back  on  my  reserves,  and  summoned  up 
memories  half  a  century  old  to  gain  the  respect 
and  win  the  confidence  of  the  great  horse-sub- 
duer.  He  showed  us  various  fine  animals,  some 
in  their  stalls,  some  outside  of  them.  Chief  of 
all  was  the  renowned  Bend  Or,  a  Derby  winner, 
a  noble  and  beautiful  bay,  destined  in  a  few 
weeks  to  gain  new  honors  on  the  same  turf  in 
the  triumph  of  his  offspring  Ormonde,  whose 
acquaintance  we  shall  make  by  and  by. 

The  next  day,  Tuesday,  May  llth,  at  4.25, 
we  took  the  train  for  London.  We  had  a  saloon 
car,  which  had  been  thoughtfully  secured  for 
us  through  unseen,  not  unsuspected,  agencies, 
which  had  also  beautified  the  compartment  with 
flowers. 

Here  are  some  of  my  first  impressions  of  Eng 
land  as  seen  from  the  carriage  and  from  the 
cars.  —  How  very  English !  I  recall  Birket 
Foster's  Pictures  of  English  Landscape,  —  a 
beautiful,  poetical  series  of  views,  but  hardly 
more  poetical  than  the  reality.  How  thoroughly 


FIRST  IMPRESSIONS  OF  ENGLAND.      S3 

England  is  groomed  !  Our  New  England  out- 
of-doors  landscape  often  looks  as  if  it  had  just 
got  out  of  bed,  and  had  not  finished  its  toilet. 
The  glowing  green  of  everything  strikes  me : 
green  hedges  in  place  of  our  rail-fences,  always 
ugly,  and  our  rude  stone-walls,  which  are  not 
wanting  in  a  certain  look  of  fitness  approaching 
to  comeliness,  and  are  really  picturesque  when 
lichen-coated,  but  poor  features  of  landscape  as 
compared  to  these  universal  hedges.  I  am  dis 
appointed  in  the  trees,  so  far ;  I  have  not  seen 
one  large  tree  as  yet.  Most  of  those  I  see  are  of 
very  moderate  dimensions,  feathered  all  the  way 
up  their  long  slender  trunks,  with  a  lop-sided 
mop  of  leaves  at  the  top,  like  a  wig  which  has 
slipped  awry.  I  trust  that  I  am  not  finding 
everything  couleur  de  rose ;  but  I  certainly  do 
find  the  cheeks  of  children  and  young  persons  of 
such  brilliant  rosy  hue  as  I  do  not  remember 
that  I  have  ever  seen  before.  I  am  almost  ready 
to  think  this  and  that  child's  face  has  been  col 
ored  from  a  pink  saucer.  If  the  Saxon  youth 
exposed  for  sale  at  Rome,  in  the  days  of  Pope 
Gregory  the  Great,  had  complexions  like  these 
children,  no  wonder  that  the  pontiff  exclaimed, 


34       OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

Not  Angli)  but  angeli  !  All  this  may  sound  a 
little  extravagant,  but  I  am  giving  my  impres 
sions  without  any  intentional  exaggeration. 
How  far  these  first  impressions  may  be  modified 
by  after-experiences  there  will  be  time  enough 
to  find  out  and  to  tell.  It  is  better  to  set  them 
down  at  once  just  as  they  are.  A  first  impres 
sion  is  one  never  to  be  repeated;  the  second 
look  will  see  much  that  was  not  noticed  before, 
but  it  will  not  reproduce  the  sharp  lines  of  the 
Jirst  proof,  which  is  always  interesting,  no  mat 
ter  what  the  eye  or  the  mind  fixes  upon.  "  I  see 
men  as  trees  walking."  That  first  experience 
could  not  be  mended.  When  Dickens  landed 
in  Boston,  he  was  struck  with  the  brightness  of 
all  the  objects  he  saw,  —  buildings,  signs,  and  so 
forth.  When  I  landed  in  Liverpool,  everything 
looked  very  dark,  very  dingy,  very  massive,  in 
the  streets  I  drove  through.  So  in  London,  but 
in  a  week  it  all  seemed  natural  enough. 

We  got  to  the  hotel  where  we  had  engaged 
quarters,  at  eleven  o'clock  in  the  evening  of 
Wednesday,  the  12th  of  May.  Everything  was 
ready  for  us,  —  a  bright  fire  blazing  and  supper 
waiting.  When  we  came  to  look  at  the  accom- 


LONDON.  35 

modations,  we  found  they  were  not  at  all  adapted 
to  our  needs.  It  was  impossible  to  stay  there 
another  night.  So  early  the  next  morning  we 
sent  out  our  courier-maid,  a  dove  from  the  ark, 
to  find  us  a  place  where  we  could  rest  the  soles 
of  our  feet.  London  is  a  nation  of  something 
like  four  millions  of  inhabitants,  and  one  does 
not  feel  easy  without  he  has  an  assured  place  of 
shelter.  The  dove  flew  all  over  the  habitable 
districts  of  the  city,  —  inquired  at  as  many  as 
twenty  houses.  No  roosting-place  for  our  little 
flock  of  three.  At  last  the  good  angel  who  fol 
lowed  us  everywhere,  in  one  shape  or  another, 
pointed  the  wanderer  to  a  place  which  corre 
sponded  with  all  our  requirements  and  wishes. 
This  was  at  No.  17  Dover  Street,  Mackellar's 
Hotel,  where  we  found  ourselves  comfortably 
lodged  and  well  cared  for  during  the  whole  time 
we  were  in  London.  It  was  close  to  Piccadilly 
and  to  Bond  Street.  Near  us,  in  the  same  range, 
were  Brown's  Hotel  and  Batt's  Hotel,  both 
widely  known  to  the  temporary  residents  of 
London. 

We  were  but   partially  recovered   from   the 
fatigues   and    trials   of    the   voyage   when   our 


36        OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

arrival  pulled  the  string  of  the  social  shower- 
bath,  and  the  invitations  began  pouring  down 
upon  us  so  fast  that  we  caught  our  breath, 
and  felt  as  if  we  should  be  smothered.  The 
first  evening  saw  us  at  a  great  dinner-party  at 
our  well-remembered  friend  Lady  Harcourt's. 
Twenty  guests,  celebrities  and  agreeable  per 
sons,  with  or  without  titles.  The  tables  were 
radiant  with  silver,  glistening  with  choice  porce 
lain,  blazing  with  a  grand  show  of  tulips.  This 
was  our  "  baptism  of  fire  "  in  that  long  conflict 
which  lasts  through  the  London  season.  After 
dinner  came  a  grand  reception,  most  interesting, 
but  fatiguing  to  persons  hardly  as  yet  in  good 
condition  for  social  service.  We  lived  through 
it,  however,  and  enjoyed  meeting  so  many 
friends,  known  and  unknown,  who  were  very 
cordial  and  pleasant  in  their  way  of  receiving  us. 
It  was  plain  that  we  could  not  pretend  to  an 
swer  all  the  invitations  which  flooded  our  tables. 
If  we  had  attempted  it,  we  should  have  found 
no  time  for  anything  else.  A  secretary  was  evi 
dently  a  matter  of  immediate  necessity.  Through 
the  kindness  of  Mrs.  Pollock,  we  found  a  young 
lady  who  was  exactly  fitted  for  the  place.  She 


LONDON.  37 

was  installed  in  the  little  room  intended  for  her, 
and  began  the  work  of  accepting  with  pleasure 
and  regretting  our  inability,  of  acknowledging 
the  receipt  of  books,  flowers,  and  other  objects, 
and  being  very  sorry  that  we  could  not  subscribe 
to  this  good  object  and  attend  that  meeting  in 
behalf  of  a  deserving  charity,  —  in  short,  writ 
ing  almost  everything  for  us  except  autographs, 
which  I  can  warrant  were  always  genuine.  The 
poor  young  lady  was  almost  tired  out  sometimes, 
having  to  stay  at  her  table,  on  one  occasion,  so 
late  as  eleven  in  the  evening,  to  get  through  her 
day's  work.  I  simplified  matters  for  her  by 
giving  her  a  set  of  formula  as  a  base  to  start 
from,  and  she  proved  very  apt  at  the  task  of 
modifying  each  particular  letter  to  suit  its  pur 
pose. 

From  this  time  forward  continued  a  perpetual 
round  of  social  engagements.  Breakfasts, 
luncheons,  dinners,  teas,  receptions  with  spread 
tables,  two,  three,  and  four  deep  of  an  evening, 
with  receiving  company  at  our  own  rooms,  took 
up  the  day,  so  that  we  had  very  little  time  for 
common  sight-seeing. 

Of  these  kinds  of  entertainment,  the  break- 


38        OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

fast,  though  pleasant  enough  when  the  company 
is  agreeable,  as  I  always  found  it,  is  the  least 
convenient  of  all  times  and  modes  of  visiting. 
You  have  already  interviewed  one  breakfast, 
and  are  expecting  soon  to  be  coquetting  with  a 
tempting  luncheon.  If  one  had  as  many  stom 
achs  as  a  ruminant,  he  would  not  mind  three 
or  four  serious  meals  a  day,  not  counting  the 
tea  as  one  of  them.  The  luncheon  is  a  very 
convenient  affair :  it  does  not  require  special 
dress ;  it  is  informal ;  it  is  soon  over,  and  may 
be  made  light  or  heavy,  as  one  chooses.  The 
afternoon  tea  is  almost  a  necessity  in  London 
life.  It  is  considered  useful  as  "  a  pick  me  up," 
and  it  serves  an  admirable  purpose  in  the  social 
system.  It  costs  the  household  hardly  any 
trouble  or  expense.  It  brings  people  together 
in  the  easiest  possible  way,  for  ten  minutes  or 
an  hour,  just  as  their  engagements  or  fancies 
may  settle  it.  A  cup  of  tea  at  the  right  moment 
does  for  the  virtuous  reveller  all  that  Falstaff 
claims  for  a  good  sherris-sack,  or  at  least  the 
first  half  of  its  "  twofold  operation :  "  "  It 
ascends  me  into  the  brain  ;  dries  me  there  all 
the  foolish  and  dull  and  crudy  vapors  which  en- 


LONDON.  39 

viron  it ;  makes  it  apprehensive,  quick,  forge tive, 
full  of  nimble,  fiery  and  delectable  shapes,  which 
delivered  over  to  the  voice,  the  tongue,  which  is 
the  birth,  becomes  excellent  wit." 

But  it  must  have  the  right  brain  to  work 
upon,  and  I  doubt  if  there  is  any  brain  to  which 
it  is  so  congenial  and  from  which  it  brings  so 
much  as  that  of  a  first-rate  London  old  lady. 
I  came  away  from  the  great  city  with  the  feel 
ing  that  this  most  complex  product  of  civiliza 
tion  was  nowhere  else  developed  to  such  perfec 
tion.  The  octogenarian  Londoness  has  been  in 
society,  —  let  us  say  the  highest  society,  —  all 
her  days.  She  is  as  tough  as  an  old  macaw,  or 
she  would  not  have  lasted  so  long.  She  has 
seen  and  talked  with  all  the  celebrities  of  three 
generations,  all  the  beauties  of  at  least  half  a 
dozen  decades.  Her  wits  have  been  kept  bright 
by  constant  use,  and  as  she  is  free  of  speech  it 
requires  some  courage  to  face  her.  Yet  nobody 
can  be  more  agreeable,  even  to  young  persons, 
than  one  of  these  precious  old  dowagers.  A 
great  beauty  is  almost  certainly  thinking  how 
she  looks  while  one  is  talking  with  her ;  an  au 
thoress  is  waiting  to  have  one  praise  her  book ; 


40        OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

but  a  grand  old  lady,  who  loves  London  society, 
who  lives  in  it,  who  understands  young  people 
and  all  sorts  of  people,  with  her  high-colored 
recollections  of  the  past  and  her  grand-maternal 
interests  in  the  new  generation,  is  the  best  of 
companions,  especially  over  a  cup  of  tea  just 
strong  enough  to  stir  up  her  talking  ganglions. 

A  breakfast,  a  lunch,  a  tea,  is  a  circumstance, 
an  occurrence,  in  social  life,  but  a  dinner  is  an 
event.  It  is  the  full-blown  flower  of  that  cul 
tivated  growth  of  which  those  lesser  products 
are  the  buds.  I  will  not  try  to  enumerate,  still 
less  to  describe,  the  various  entertainments  to 
which  we  were  invited,  and  many  of  which  we 
attended.  Among  the  professional  friends  I 
found  or  made  during  this  visit  to  London,  none 
were  more  kindly  attentive  than  Dr.  Priestley, 
who,  with  his  charming  wife,  the  daughter  of 
the  late  Kobert  Chambers,  took  more  pains  to 
carry  out  our  wishes  than  we  could  have  asked 
or  hoped  for.  At  his  house  I  first  met  Sir 
James  Paget  and  Sir  William  Gull,  long  well 
known  to  me,  as  to  the  medical  profession  every 
where,  as  preeminent  in  their  several  depart 
ments.  If  I  were  an  interviewer  or  a  news- 


LONDON.  41 

paper  reporter,  I  should  be  tempted  to  give  the 
impression  which  the  men  and  women  of  dis 
tinction  I  met  made  upon  me ;  but  where  all 
were  cordial,  where  all  made  me  feel  as  nearly 
as  they  could  that  I  belonged  where  I  found 
myself,  whether  the  ceiling  were  a  low  or  a  lofty 
one,  I  do  not  care  to  differentiate  my  hosts  and 
my  other  friends.  Fortemque  Gyanfortemque 
Cloanthum,  —  I  left  my  microscope  and  my 
test-papers  at  home. 

Our  friends,  several  of  them,  had  a  pleasant 
way  of  sending  their  carriages  to  give  us  a  drive 
in  the  Park,  where,  except  in  certain  permitted 
regions,  the  common  numbered  vehicles  are  not 
allowed  to  enter.  Lady  Harcourt  sent  her  car 
riage  for  us  to  go  to  her  sister's,  Mrs.  Mild- 
may's,  where  we  had  a  pleasant  little  "tea," 
and  met  one  of  the  most  agreeable  and  remark 
able  of  those  London  old  ladies  I  have  spoken 
of.  For  special  occasions  we  hired  an  unnum 
bered  carriage,  with  professionally  equipped 
driver  and  footman. 

Mrs.  Bloomfield  Moore  sent  her  carriage  for 
us  to  take  us  to  a  lunch  at  her  house,  where  we 
met  Mr.  Browning,  Sir  Henry  and  Lady  Lay- 


42        OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

ard,  Oscar  Wilde  and  his  handsome  wife,  and 
other  well-known  guests.  After  lunch,  recita 
tions,  songs,  etc.  House  full  of  pretty  things. 
Among  other  curiosities  a  portfolio  of  drawings 
illustrating  Keeley's  motor,  which,  up  to  this 
time,  has  manifested  a  remarkably  powerful 
vis  inertice,  but  which  promises  miracles.  In 
the  evening  a  grand  reception  at  Lady  Gran- 
ville's,  beginning  (for  us,  at  least)  at  eleven 

o'clock.  The  house  a  palace,  and  A thinks 

there  were  a  thousand  people  there.  We  made 
the  tour  of  the  rooms,  saw  many  great  person 
ages,  had  to  wait  for  our  carriage  a  long  time, 
but  got  home  at  one  o'clock. 

English  people  have  queer  notions  about  iced- 
water  and  ice-cream.  "  You  will  surely  die, 
eating  such  cold  stuff,"  said  a  lady  to  my  com 
panion.  "  Oh,  no,"  she  answered,  "  but  I  should 
certainly  die  were  I  to  drink  your  two  cups  of 
strong  tea."  I  approved  of  this  "  counter  "  on 
the  teacup,  but  I  did  not  think  either  of  them 
was  in  much  danger. 

The  next  day  Kev.  Mr.  Haweis  sent  his  car 
riage,  and  we  drove  in  the  Park.  In  the  after 
noon  we  went  to  our  Minister's  to  see  the  Amer- 


LONDON.  43 

ican  ladies  who  had  been  presented  at  the  draw 
ing-room.  After  this,  both  of  us  were  glad  to 
pass  a  day  or  two  in  comparative  quiet,  except 
that  we  had  a  room  full  of  visitors.  So  many 
persons  expressed  a  desire  to  make  our  acquaint 
ance  that  we  thought  it  would  be  acceptable  to 
them  if  we  would  give  a  reception  ourselves. 
We  were  thinking  how  we  could  manage  it  with 
our  rooms  at  the  hotel,  which  were  not  arranged 
so  that  they  could  be  thrown  together.  Still, 
we  were  planning  to  make  the  best  of  them, 
when  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Priestley  suggested  that  we 
should  receive  our  company  at  their  house. 
This  was  a  surprise,  and  a  most  welcome  one, 
and  A and  her  kind  friend  busied  them 
selves  at  once  about  the  arrangements. 

We  went  to  a  luncheon  at  Lansdowne  House, 
Lord  Rosebery's  residence,  not  far  from  our 
hotel.  My  companion  tells  a  little  incident 
which  may  please  an  American  six-year-old: 
"  The  eldest  of  the  four  children,  Sibyl,  a  pretty, 
bright  child  of  six,  told  me  that  she  wrote  a  let 
ter  to  the  Queen.  I  said,  4  Did  you  begin,  Dear 
Queen  ?  '  4  No/  she  answered,  *  I  began,  Your 
Majesty,  and  signed  myself,  Your  little  humble 


44       OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

servant,  Sibyl."  A  very  cordial  and  homelike 
reception  at  this  great  house,  where  a  couple  of 
hours  were  passed  most  agreeably. 

On  the  following  Sunday  I  went  to  Westmin 
ster  Abbey  to  hear  a  sermon  from  Canon  Har- 
ford  on  A  Cheerful  Life.  A  lively,  wholesome, 
and  encouraging  discourse,  such  as  it  would  do 
many  a  forlorn  New  England  congregation  good 
to  hear.  In  the  afternoon  we  both  went  together 
to  the  Abbey.  Met  our  Beverly  neighbor,  Mrs. 
Vaughan,  and  adopted  her  as  one  of  our  party. 
The  seats  we  were  to  have  were  full,  and  we 
had  to  be  stowed  where  there  was  any  place  that 
would  hold  us.  I  was  smuggled  into  a  stall, 
going  through  long  and  narrow  passages,  be 
tween  crowded  rows  of  people,  and  found  my 
self  at  last  with  a  big  book  before  me  and  a  set 
of  official  personages  around  me,  whose  duties 
I  did  not  clearly  understand.  I  thought  they 
might  be  mutes,  or  something  of  that  sort,  sal 
aried  to  look  grave  and  keep  quiet.  After  ser 
vice  we  took  tea  with  Dean  Bradley,  and  after 
tea  we  visited  the  Jerusalem  Chamber.  I  had 
been  twice  invited  to  weddings  in  that  famous 
room :  once  to  the  marriage  of  my  friend  Mot- 


LONDON.  — LYCEUM  THEATRE.     45 

ley's  daughter,  then  to  that  of  Mr.  Frederick 
Locker's  daughter  to  Lionel  Tennyson,  whose 
recent  death  has  been  so  deeply  mourned.  I 
never  expected  to  see  that  Jerusalem  in  which 
Harry  the  Fourth  died,  but  there  I  found  my 
self  in  the  large  panelled  chamber,  with  all  its 
associations.  The  older  memories  came  up  but 
vaguely ;  an  American  finds  it  as  hard  to  call 
back  anything  over  two  or  three  centuries  old 
as  a  sucking-pump  to  draw  up  water  from  a 
depth  of  over  thirty-three  feet  and  a  fraction. 

After  this  A went  to  a  musical  party,  dined 

with  the  Vaughans,  and  had  a  good  time  among 
American  friends. 

The  next  evening  we  went  to  the  Lyceum 
Theatre  to  see  Mr.  Irving.  He  had  placed  the 
Royal  box  at  our  disposal,  so  we  invited  our 
friends  the  Priestleys  to  go  with  us,  and  we  all 
enjoyed  the  evening  mightily.  Between  the 
scenes  we  went  behind  the  curtain,  and  saw  the 
very  curious  and  admirable  machinery  of  the 
dramatic  spectacle.  We  made  the  acquaintance 
of  several  imps  and  demons,  who  were  got  up 
wonderfully  well.  Ellen  Terry  was  as  fascinat 
ing  as  ever.  I  remembered  that  once  before  I 


46        OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

had  met  her  and  Mr.  Irving  behind  the  scenes. 
It  was  at  the  Boston  Theatre,  and  while  I  was 
talking  with  them  a  very  heavy  piece  of  scenery 
came  crashing  down,  and  filled  the  whole  place 
with  dust.  It  was  but  a  short  distance  from 
where  we  were  standing,  and  I  could  not  help 
thinking  how  near  our  several  life-dramas  came 
to  a  simultaneous  exeunt  omnes. 

A  long  visit  from  a  polite  interviewer,  shop 
ping,  driving,  calling,  arranging  about  the  peo 
ple  to  be  invited  to  our  reception,  and  an  agree 
able  dinner  at  Chelsea  with  my  American 
friend,  Mrs.  Merritt,  filled  up  this  day  full 
enough,  and  left  us  in  good  condition  for  the 
next,  which  was  to  be  a  very  busy  one. 

In  the  Introduction  to  these  papers,  I  men 
tioned  the  fact  that  more  than  half  a  century 
ago  I  went  to  the  famous  Derby  race  at  Epsom. 
I  determined,  if  possible,  to  see  the  Derby  of 
1886,  as  I  had  seen  that  of  1834.  I  must  have 
spoken  of  this  intention  to  some  interviewer,  for 
I  find  the  following  paragraph  in  an  English 
sporting  newspaper,  "  The  Field,"  for  May  29th, 
1886 :  — 

"  The  Derby  has  always  been  the  one  event 


EPSOM.  47 

in  the  racing  year  which  statesmen,  philoso 
phers,  poets,  essayists,  and  litterateurs  desire  to 
see  once  in  their  lives.  A  few  years  since  Mr. 
Gladstone  was  induced  by  Lord  Granville  and 
Lord  Wolverton  to  run  down  to  Epsom  on  the 
Derby  day.  The  impression  produced  upon  the 
Prime  Minister's  sensitive  and  emotional  mind 
was  that  the  mirth  and  hilarity  displayed  by  his 
compatriots  upon  Epsom  race-course  was  Italian 
rather  than  English  in  its  character.  On  the 
other  hand,  Gustave  Dore,  who  also  saw  the 
Derby  for  the  first  and  only  time  in  his  life,  ex 
claimed,  as  he  gazed  with  horror  upon  the  faces 
below  him,  Quelle  scene  brutale  I  We  wonder 
to  which  of  these  two  impressions  Dr.  Oliver 
"Wendell  Holmes  inclined,  if  he  went  last 
Wednesday  to  Epsom !  Probably  the  well- 
known,  etc.,  etc.  —  Of  one  thing  Dr.  Holmes 
may  rest  finally  satisfied :  the  Derby  of  1886 
may  possibly  have  seemed  to  him  far  less  excit 
ing  than  that  of  1834 ;  but  neither  in  1834  nor 
in  any  other  year  was  the  great  race  ever  won 
by  a  better  sportsman  or  more  honorable  man 
than  the  Duke  of  Westminster." 

My  desire  to  see  the  Derby  of  this  year  was 


48        OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

of  the  same  origin  and  character  as  that  which 
led  me  to  revisit  many  scenes  which  I  remem 
bered.  I  cared  quite  as  much  about  renewing 
old  impressions  as  about  getting  new  ones.  I 
enjoyed  everything  which  I  had  once  seen  all 
the  more  from  the  blending  of  my  recollections 
with  the  present  as  it  was  before  me. 

The  Derby  day  of  1834  was  exceedingly 
windy  and  dusty.  Our  party,  riding  on  the  out 
side  of  the  coach,  was  half  smothered  with  the 
dust,  and  arrived  in  a  very  deteriorated  condi 
tion,  but  recompensed  for  it  by  the  extraordi 
nary  sights  we  had  witnessed.  There  was  no 
train  in  those  days,  and  the  whole  road  between 
London  and  Epsom  was  choked  with  vehicles  of 
all  kinds,  from  four-in-hands  to  donkey-carts  and 
wheelbarrows.  My  friends  and  I  mingled  freely 
in  the  crowds,  and  saw  all  the  "  humours "  of 
the  occasion.  The  thimble-riggers  were  out  in 
great  force,  with  their  light,  movable  tables,  the 
cups  or  thimbles,  and  the  "  little  jokers,"  and 
the  coachman,  the  sham  gentleman,  the  country 
greenhorn,  all  properly  got  up  and  gathered 
about  the  table.  I  think  we  had  "  Aunt  Sally," 
too, — the  figure  with  a  pipe  in  her  mouth, 


EPSOM.  49 

which  one  might  shy  a  stick  at  for  a  penny  or 
two  and  win  something,  I  forget  what.  The 
clearing  the  course  of  stragglers,  and  the  chas 
ing  about  of  the  frightened  little  dog  who  had 
got  in  between  the  thick  ranks  of  spectators, 
reminded  me  of  what  I  used  to  see  on  old  "  ar 
tillery  election  "  days. 

It  was  no  common  race  that  I  went  to  see  in 
1834.  "  It  is  asserted  in  the  columns  of  a  con 
temporary  that  Plenipotentiary  was  absolutely 
the  best  horse  of  the  century."  This  was  the 
winner  of  the  race  I  saw  so  long  ago.  Her 
ring's  colored  portrait,  which  I  have  always 
kept,  shows  him  as  a  great,  powerful  chestnut 
horse,  well  deserving  the  name  of  "bullock," 
which  one  of  the  jockeys  applied  to  him.  "  Ru 
mor  credits  Dr.  Holmes,"  so  "  The  Field  "  says, 
"  with  desiring  mentally  to  compare  his  two 
Derbies  with  each  other."  I  was  most  fortu 
nate  in  my  objects  of  comparison.  The  horse  I 
was  about  to  see  win  was  not  unworthy  of  being 
named  with  the  renowned  champion  of  my  ear 
lier  day.  I  quote  from  a  writer  in  the  "  Lon 
don  Morning  Post,"  whose  words,  it  will  be 
seen,  carry  authority  with  them  :  — 


50        OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

"  Deep  as  has  hitherto  been  my  reverence  for 
Plenipotentiary,  Bay  Middleton,  and  Queen  of 
Trumps  from  hearsay,  and  for  Don  John,  Cru 
cifix,  etc.,  etc.,  from  my  own  personal  know 
ledge,  I  am  inclined  to  award  the  palm  to  Or 
monde  as  the  best  three-year-old  I  have  ever 
seen  during  close  upon  half  a  century's  connec 
tion  with  the  turf." 

Ormonde,  the  Duke  of  Westminster's  horse, 
was  the  son  of  that  other  winner  of  the  Derby, 
Bend  Or,  whom  I  saw  at  Eaton  Hall. 

Perhaps  some  coeval  of  mine  may  think  it 
was  a  rather  youthful  idea  to  go  to  the  race.  I 
cannot  help  that.  I  was  off  on  my  first  long 
vacation  for  half  a  century,  and  had  a  right  to 
my  whims  and  fancies.  But  it  was  one  thing  to 
go  in  with  a  vast  crowd  at  five  and  twenty,  and 
another  thing  to  run  the  risks  of  the  excursion 
at  more  than  thrice  that  age.  I  looked  about 
me  for  means  of  going  safely,  and  could  think 
of  nothing  better  than  to  ask  one  of  the  plea- 
santest  and  kindest  of  gentlemen,  to  whom  I  had 
a  letter  from  Mr.  Winthrop,  at  whose  house  I 
had  had  the  pleasure  of  making  his  acquaint 
ance.  Lord  Kosebery  suggested  that  the  best 


EPSOM.  61 

way  would  be  for  me  to  go  in  the  special  train 
which  was  to  carry  the  Prince  of  Wales.  First, 
then,  I  was  to  be  introduced  to  his  Royal  High 
ness,  which  office  was  kindly  undertaken  by  our 
very  obliging  and  courteous  Minister,  Mr. 
Phelps.  After  this  all  was  easily  arranged,  and 
I  was  cared  for  as  well  as  if  I  had  been  Mr. 
Phelps  himself.  On  the  grand  stand  I  found 
myself  in  the  midst  of  the  great  people,  who 
were  all  very  natural,  and  as  much  at  their  ease 
as  the  rest  of  the  world.  The  Prince  is  of  a 
lively  temperament  and  a  very  cheerful  aspect, 
—  a  young  girl  would  call  him  "  jolly  "  as  well 
as  "  nice."  I  recall  the  story  of  "  Mr.  Pope  " 
and  his  Prince  of  Wales,  as  told  by  Horace 
Walpole.  "  Mr.  Pope,  you  don't  love  princes." 
"  Sir,  I  beg  your  pardon."  "  Well,  you  don't 
love  kings,  then."  "  Sir,  I  own  I  love  the  lion 
best  before  his  claws  are  grown."  Certainly, 
nothing  in  Prince  Albert  Edward  suggests  any 
aggressive  weapons  or  tendencies.  The  lovely, 
youthful  -  looking,  gracious  Alexandra,  the  al 
ways  affable  and  amiable  Princess  Louise,  the 
tall  youth  who  sees  the  crown  and  sceptre  afar 
off  in  his  dreams,  the  slips  of  girls  so  like  many 


52        OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

school  misses  we  left  behind  us,  —  all  these 
grand  personages,  not  being  on  exhibition,  but 
off  enjoying  themselves,  just  as  I  was  and  as 
other  people  were,  seemed  very  much  like  their 
fellow  -  mortals.  It  is  really  easier  to  feel  at 
home  with  the  highest  people  in  the  land  than 
with  the  awkward  commoner  who  was  knighted 
yesterday.  When  "  My  Lord  and  Sir  Paul " 
came  into  the  Club  which  Goldsmith  tells  us  of, 
the  hilarity  of  the  evening  was  instantly  checked. 
The  entrance  of  a  dignitary  like  the  present 
Prince  of  Wales  would  not  have  spoiled  the  fun 
of  the  evening.  If  there  is  any  one  accomplish 
ment  specially  belonging  to  princes,  it  is  that  of 
making  the  persons  they  meet  feel  at  ease. 

The  grand  stand  to  which  I  was  admitted  was 
a  little  privileged  republic.  I  remember  Thack 
eray's  story  of  his  asking  some  simple  question 
of  a  royal  or  semi-royal  personage  whom  he  met 
in  the  courtyard  of  an  hotel,  which  question  his 
Highness  did  not  answer,  but  called  a  subordi 
nate  to  answer  for  him.  I  had  been  talking 
some  time  with  a  tall,  good-looking  gentleman, 
whom  I  took  for  a  nobleman  to  whom  I  had 
been  introduced.  Something  led  me  to  think  I 


EPSOM.  53 

was  mistaken  in  the  identity  of  this  gentleman. 
I  asked  him,  at  last,  if  he  were  not  So  and  So. 
"No,"  he  said,  "  I  am  Prince  Christian."  You 
are  a  Christian  prince,  anyhow,  I  said  to  my 
self,  if  I  may  judge  by  your  manners. 

I  once  made  a  similar  mistake  in  addressing 
a  young  fellow-citizen  of  some  social  pretensions. 
I  apologized  for  my  error. 

"No  offence,"  he  answered. 

Offence  indeed !  I  should  hope  not.  But 
he  had  not  the  "  maniere  de  prince"  or  he  would 
never  have  used  that  word. 

I  must  say  something  about  the  race  I  had 
taken  so  much  pains  to  see.  There  was  a  pre 
liminary  race,  which  excited  comparatively  little 
interest.  After  this  the  horses  were  shown  in 
the  paddock,  and  many  of  our  privileged  party 
went  down  from  the  stand  to  look  at  them. 
Then  they  were  brought  out,  smooth,  shining, 
fine-drawn,  frisky,  spirit-stirring  to  look  upon, 
—  most  beautiful  of  all  the  bay  horse  Ormonde, 
who  could  hardly  be  restrained,  such  was  his 
eagerness  for  action.  The  horses  disappear  in 
the  distance.  —  They  are  off,  —  not  yet  distin 
guishable,  at  least  to  me.  A  little  waiting  time, 


54        OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

and  they  swim  into  our  ken,  but  in  what  order 
of  precedence  it  is  as  yet  not  easy  to  say.  Here 
they  come  I  Two  horses  have  emerged  from  the 
ruck,  and  are  sweeping,  rushing,  storming,  to 
wards  us,  almost  side  by  side.  One  slides  by 
the  other,  half  a  length,  a  length,  a  length  and 
a  half.  Those  are  Archer's  colors,  and  the 
beautiful  bay  Ormonde  flashes  by  the  line,  win 
ner  of  the  Derby  of  1886.  "  The  Bard "  has 
made  a  good  fight  for  the  first  place,  and  comes 
in  second.  Poor  Archer,  the  king  of  the  jock 
eys  !  He  will  bestride  no  more  Derby  winners. 
A  few  weeks  later  he  died  by  his  own  hand. 

While  the  race  was  going  on,  the  yells  of  the 
betting  crowd  beneath  us  were  incessant.  It 
must  have  been  the  frantic  cries  and  movements 
of  these  people  that  caused  Gustave  Dore  to 
characterize  it  as  a  brutal  scene.  The  vast  mob 
which  thronged  the  wide  space  beyond  the  shout 
ing  circle  just  round  us  was  much  like  that  of 
any  other  fair,  so  far  as  I  could  see  from  my 
royal  perch.  The  most  conspicuous  object  was  a 
man  on  an  immensely  tall  pair  of  stilts,  stalking 
about  among  the  crowd.  I  think  it  probable 
that  I  had  as  much  enjoyment  in  forming  one  of 


EPSOM.  55 

the  great  mob  in  1834  as  I  had  among  the  gran 
deurs  in  1886,  but  the  last  is  pleasanter  to  re 
member  and  especially  to  tell  of. 

After  the  race  we  had  a  luncheon  served  us,  a 
comfortable  and  substantial  one,  which  was  very 
far  from  unwelcome.  I  did  not  go  to  the  Derby 
to  bet  on  the  winner.  But  as  I  went  in  to 
luncheon,  I  passed  a  gentleman  standing  in  cus 
tody  of  a  plate  half  covered  with  sovereigns. 
He  politely  asked  me  if  I  would  take  a  little 
paper  from  a  heap  there  was  lying  by  the  plate, 
and  add  a  sovereign  to  the  collection  already 
there.  I  did  so,  and,  unfolding  my  paper,  found 
it  was  a  blank,  and  passed  on.  The  pool,  as  I 
afterwards  learned,  fell  to  the  lot  of  the  Turkish 
Ambassador.  I  found  it  very  windy  and  uncom 
fortable  on  the  more  exposed  parts  of  the  grand 
stand,  and  was  glad  that  I  had  taken  a  shawl 
with  me,  in  which  I  wrapped  myself  as  if  I  had 
been  on  shipboard.  This,  I  told  my  English 
friends,  was  the  more  civilized  form  of  the 
Indian's  blanket.  My  report  of  the  weather 
does  not  say  much  for  the  English  May,  but  it 
is  generally  agreed  upon  that  this  is  a  backward 
and  unpleasant  spring. 


56        OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

After  my  return  from  the  race  we  went  to  a 
large  dinner  at  Mr.  Phelps's  house,  where  we 
met  Mr.  Browning  again,  and  the  Lord  Chan 
cellor  Herschel,  among  others.  Then  to  Mrs. 
Cyril  Flower's,  one  of  the  most  sumptuous 
houses  in  London ;  and  after  that  to  Lady 
Rothschild's,  another  of  the  private  palaces,  with 
ceilings  lofty  as  firmaments,  and  walls  that 
might  have  been  copied  from  the  New  Jerusalem. 
There  was  still  another  great  and  splendid  re 
ception  at  Lady  Dalhousie's,  and  a  party  at  Mrs. 
Smith's,  but  we  were  both  tired  enough  to  be 
willing  to  go  home  after  what  may  be  called  a 
pretty  good  day's  work  at  enjoying  ourselves. 

We  had  been  a  fortnight  in  London,  and 
were  now  inextricably  entangled  in  the  meshes 
of  the  golden  web  of  London  social  life. 


II. 

THE  reader  who  glances  over  these  papers, 
and,  finding  them  too  full  of  small  details  and 
the  lesser  personal  matters  which  belong  natu 
rally  to  private  correspondences,  turns  impa 
tiently  from  them,  has  my  entire  sympathy  and 
good-will.  He  is  not  one  of  those  for  whom 
these  pages  are  meant.  Having  no  particular 
interest  in  the  writer  or  his  affairs,  he  does  not 
care  for  the  history  of  "  the  migrations  from  the 
blue  bed  to  the  brown  "  and  the  many  Mistress 
Quickly  isms  of  circumstantial  narrative.  Yet 
all  this  may  be  pleasant  reading  to  relatives  and 
friends. 

But  I  must  not  forget  that  a  new  generation 
of  readers  has  come  into  being  since  I  have  been 
writing  for  the  public,  and  that  a  new  genera 
tion  of  aspiring  and  brilliant  authors  has  grown 
into  general  recognition.  The  dome  of  Boston 
State  House,  which  is  the  centre  of  my  little  uni 
verse,  was  glittering  in  its  fresh  golden  pellicle 


58        OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

before  I  had  reached  the  scriptural  boundary  of 
life.  It  has  lost  its  lustre  now,  and  the  years 
which  have  dulled  its  surface  have  whitened  the 
dome  of  that  fragile  structure  in  which  my  con 
sciousness  holds  the  session  of  its  faculties. 
Time  is  not  to  be  cheated.  It  is  easy  to  talk  of 
perennial  youth,  and  to  toy  with  the  flattering 
fictions  which  every  ancient  personage  accepts  as 
true  so  far  as  he  himself  is  concerned,  and  laughs 
at  as  foolish  talk  when  he  hears  them  applied  to 
others.  When,  in  my  exulting  immaturity,  I 
wrote  the  lines  not  unknown  to  the  reading  pub 
lic  under  the  name  of  "  The  Last  Leaf,"  I  spoke 
of  the  possibility  that  I  myself  might  linger  on 
the  old  bough  until  the  buds  and  blossoms  of  a 
new  spring  were  opening  and  spreading  all 
around  me.  I  am  not  as  yet  the  solitary  survi 
vor  of  my  literary  contemporaries,  and,  remem 
bering  who  my  few  coevals  are,  it  may  well  be 
hoped  that  I  shall  not  be.  But  I  feel  lonely, 
very  lonely,  in  the  pages  through  which  I  wan 
der.  These  are  new  names  in  the  midst  of 
which  I  find  my  own.  In  another  sense  I  am 
very  far  from  alone.  I  have  daily  assurances 
that  I  have  a  constituency  of  known  and  un- 


EPSOM.  59 

known  personal  friends,  whose  indulgence  I  have 
no  need  of  asking.  I  know  there  are  readers 
enough  who  will  be  pleased  to  follow  nie  in  my 
brief  excursion,  because  I  am  myself,  and  will 
demand  no  better  reason.  If  I  choose  to  write 
for  them,  I  do  no  injury  to  those  for  whom  my 
personality  is  an  object  of  indifference.  They 
will  find  on  every  shelf  some  publications  which 
are  not  intended  for  them,  and  which  they  pre 
fer  to  let  alone.  No  person  is  expected  to  help 
himself  to  everything  set  before  him  at  a  pub 
lic  table.  I  will  not,  therefore,  hesitate  to  go 
on  with  the  simple  story  of  our  Old  World  expe 
riences. 

Thanks  to  my  Indian  blanket,  —  my  shawl,  I 
mean,  —  I  found  myself  nothing  the  worse  for 
my  manifold  adventures  of  the  27th  of  May. 
The  cold  wind  sweeping  over  Epsom  downs  re 
minded  me  of  our  own  chilling  easterly  breezes ; 
especially  the  northeasterly  ones,  which  are  to 
me  less  disagreeable  than  the  southeasterly. 
But  the  poetical  illusion  about  an  English  May, 

' '  Zephyr  with  Aurora  playing1, 
As  he  met  her  once  a-Mayiug," 

and  all  that,  received  a  shrewd  thrust.     Zephyr 


60        OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

ought  to  have  come  in  an  ulster,  and  offered  Au 
rora  a  warm  petticoat.  However,  in  spite  of  all 
difficulties,  I  brought  off  my  recollections  of  the 
Derby  of  1886  in  triumph,  and  am  now  waiting 
for  the  colored  portrait  of  Ormonde  with  Archer 
on  his  back,  — Archer,  the  winner  of  five  Derby 
races,  one  of  which  was  won  by  the  American 
horse  Iroquois.  When  that  picture,  which  I  am 
daily  expecting,  arrives,  I  shall  have  it  framed 
and  hung  by  the  side  of  Herring's  picture  of 
Plenipotentiary,  the  horse  I  saw  win  the  Derby 
in  1834.  These  two,  with  an  old  portrait  of  the 
great  Eclipse,  who,  as  my  engraving  of  1780 
(Stubbs's)  says,  "  was  never  beat,  or  ever  had 
occation  for  Whip  or  Spur,"  will  constitute  my 
entire  sporting  gallery.  I  have  not  that  vicious 
and  demoralizing  love  of  horse-flesh  which 
makes  it  next  to  impossible  to  find  a  perfectly 
honest  hippophile.  But  a  racer  is  the  realiza 
tion  of  an  ideal  quadruped,  — 

"  A  pard-like  spirit,  beautiful  and  swift ;  " 

so  ethereal,  so  bird-like,  that  it  is  no  wonder  that 
the  horse  about  whom  those  old  story-tellers  lied 
so  stoutly,  —  telling  of  his  running  a  mile  in  a 
minute,  —  was  called  Flying  Childers. 


LONDON.  61 

The  roses  in  Mrs.  Pfeiffer's  garden  were 
hardly  out  of  flower  when  I  lunched  with  her  at 
her  pretty  villa  at  Putney.  There  I  met  Mr. 
Browning,  Mr.  Holman  Hunt,  Mrs.  Ritchie, 
Miss  Anna  Swanwick,  the  translator  of  ^Eschy- 
lus,  and  other  good  company,  besides  that  of  my 
entertainer. 

One  of  my  very  agreeable  experiences  was  a 
call  from  a  gentleman  with  whom  I  had  corre 
sponded,  but  whom  I  had  never  met.  This  was 
Mr.  John  Bellows,  of  Gloucester,  publisher, 
printer,  man  of  letters,  or  rather  of  words ;  for 
he  is  the  author  of  that  truly  remarkable  little 
manual,  "  The  Bona  Fide  Pocket  Dictionary  of 
the  French  and  English  Languages."  To  the 
review  of  this  little  book,  which  is  dedicated  to 
Prince  Lucien  Bonaparte,  the  "  London  Times  " 
devoted  a  full  column.  I  never  heard  any  one 
who  had  used  it  speak  of  it  except  with  admira 
tion.  The  modest  Friend  may  be  surprised  to 
find  himself  at  full  length  in  my  pages,  but  those 
who  know  the  little  miracle  of  typography,  its 
conciseness,  completeness,  arrangement,  will  not 
wonder  that  I  was  gratified  to  see  the  author, 
who  sent  it  to  me,  and  who  has  written  me  most 


62        OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

interesting  letters  on  the  local  antiquities  of 
Gloucester  and  its  neighborhood. 

We  lunched  that  day  at  Lady  Camperdown's, 
where  we  were  happy  to  meet  Miss  Frances 
Power  Cobbe.  In  the  afternoon  we  went  by  in 
vitation  to  a  "  tea  and  talk  "  at  the  Reverend 
Mr.  Haweis's,  at  Chelsea.  We  found  the  house 
close  packed,  but  managed  to  get  through  the 
rooms,  shaking  innumerable  hands  of  the  rever 
end  gentleman's  parishioners  and  other  visitors. 
It  was  very  well  arranged,  so  as  not  to  be  too 
fatiguing,  and  we  left  the  cordial  gathering  in 
good  condition.  We  drove  home  with  Bishop 
and  Mrs.  Ellicott. 

After  this  Sir  James  Paget  called,  and  took 
me  to  a  small  and  early  dinner-party ;  and 

A went  with  my  secretary,  the  young  lady 

of  whom  I  have  spoken,  to  see  "  Human  Na 
ture,"  at  Drury  Lane  Theatre. 

On  the  following  day,  after  dining  with  Lady 
Holland  (wife  of  Sir  Henry,  niece  of  Macaulay), 
we  went  across  the  street  to  our  neighbor's,  Lady 
Stanley's.  There  was  to  be  a  great  meeting  of 
schoolmistresses,  in  whose  work  her  son,  the 
Honorable  Lyulph  Stanley,  is  deeply  interested. 


LONDON.  63 

Alas !  The  schoolma'ams  were  just  leaving  as 
we  entered  the  door,  and  all  we  saw  of  them  was 
the  trail  of  their  descending  robes.  I  was  very 
sorry  for  this,  for  I  have  a  good  many  friends 
among  our  own  schoolmistresses,  —  friends  whom 
I  never  saw,  but  know  through  the  kind  words 
they  have  addressed  to  me. 

No  place  in  London  looks  more  reserved  and 
exclusive  than  Devonshire  House,  standing  back 
behind  its  high  wall,  extending  along  Piccadilly. 
There  is  certainly  nothing  in  its  exterior  which 
invites  intrusion.  AVe  had  the  pleasure  of  tak 
ing  tea  in  the  great  house,  accompanying  our 
American  friend,  Lady  Harcourt,  and  were  gra 
ciously  received  and  entertained  by  Lady  Ed 
ward  Cavendish.  Like  the  other  great  houses, 
it  is  a  museum  of  paintings,  statues,  objects  of 
interest  of  all  sorts.  It  must  be  confessed  that 
it  is  pleasanter  to  go  through  the  rooms  with 
one  of  the  ladies  of  the  household  than  under 
the  lead  of  a  liveried  servant.  Lord  Hartington 
came  in  while  we  were  there.  All  the  men  who 
are  distinguished  in  political  life  become  so  famil 
iar  to  the  readers  of  "  Punch  "  in  their  carica 
tures,  that  we  know  them  at  sight.  Even  those 


64   OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

who  can  claim  no  such  public  distinction  are  occa 
sionally  the  subjects  of  the  caricaturist,  as  some 
of  us  have  found  out  for  ourselves.  A  good  car 
icature,  which  seizes  the  prominent  features  and 
gives  them  the  character  Nature  hinted,  but  did 
not  fully  carry  out,  is  a  work  of  genius.  Nature 
herself  is  a  remorseless  caricaturist,  as  our  daily 
intercourse  with  our  fellow  men  and  women 
makes  evident  to  us,  and  as  is  curiously  illus 
trated  in  the  figures  of  Charles  Lebrun,  showing 
the  relations  between  certain  human  faces  and 
those  of  various  animals.  Hardly  an  English 
statesman  in  bodily  presence  could  be  mistaken 
by  any  of  "  Punch's  "  readers. 

On  the  same  day  that  we  made  this  quiet 
visit  we  attended  a  great  and  ceremonious  assem 
bly.  There  were  two  parts  in  the  programme, 
in  the  first  of  which  I  was  on  the  stage  solus,  — 
that  is,  without  my  companion ;  in  the  second 
we  were  together.  This  day,  Saturday,  the 
29th  of  May,  was  observed  as  the  Queen's  birth 
day,  although  she  was  born  on  the  24th.  Sir 
William  Harcourt  gave  a  great  dinner  to  the 
officials  of  his  department,  and  later  in  the  even 
ing  Lady  Rosebery  held  a  reception  at  the  For- 


LONDON.  — OFFICIAL  RECEPTIONS.       65 

eign  Office.  On  both  these  occasions  everybody 
is  expected  to  be  in  court  dress,  but  my  host  told 
me  I  might  present  myself  in  ordinary  evening 
dress.  I  thought  that  I  might  feel  awkwardly 
among  so  many  guests,  all  in  the  wedding  gar 
ments,  knee-breeches  and  the  rest,  without  which 
I  ventured  among  them.  I  never  passed  an 
easier  evening  in  any  company  than  among  these 
official  personages.  Sir  William  took  me  under 
the  shield  of  his  ample  presence,  and  answered 
all  my  questions  about  the  various  notable  per 
sonages  at  his  table  in  a  way  to  have  made  my 
fortune  if  I  had  been  a  reporter.  From  the  din 
ner  I  went  to  Mrs.  Gladstone's,  at  10  Downing 

Street,  where  A called  for  me.     She  had 

found  a  very  small  and  distinguished  company 
there,  Prince  Albert  Victor  among  the  rest.  At 
half  past  eleven  we  walked  over  to  the  Foreign 
Office  to  Lady  Rosebery's  reception. 

Here  Mr.  Gladstone  was  of  course  the  centre 
of  a  group,  to  which  I  was  glad  to  add  myself. 
His  features  are  almost  as  familiar  to  me  as  my 
own,  for  a  photograph  of  him  in  his  library  has 
long  stood  on  my  revolving  bookcase,  with  a 
large  lens  before  it.  He  is  one  of  a  small  circle 


66        OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

of  individuals  in  whom  I  have  had  and  still  have 
a  special  personal  interest.  The  year  1809, 
which  introduced  me  to  atmospheric  existence, 
was  the  birth-year  of  Gladstone,  Tennyson,  Lord 
Houghton,  and  Darwin.  It  seems  like  an  honor 
to  have  come  into  the  world  in  such  company,  but 
it  is  more  likely  to  promote  humility  than  vanity 
in  a  common  mortal  to  find  himself  coeval  with 
such  illustrious  personages.  Men  born  in  the 
same  year  watch  each  other,  especially  as  the 
sands  of  life  begin  to  run  low,  as  we  can  imagine 
so  many  damaged  hour-glasses  to  keep  an  eye  on 
each  other.  Women,  of  course,  never  know  who 
are  their  contemporaries. 

Familiar  to  me  as  were  the  features  of  Mr. 
Gladstone,  I  looked  upon  him  with  astonishment. 
For  he  stood  before  me  with  epaulets  on  his 
shoulders  and  a  rapier  at  his  side,  as  military  in 
his  aspect  as  if  he  had  been  Lord  Wolseley,  to 
whom  I  was  introduced  a  short  time  afterwards. 
I  was  fortunate  enough  to  see  and  hear  Mr. 
Gladstone  on  a  still  more  memorable  occasion, 
and  can  afford  to  leave  saying  what  were  my 
impressions  of  the  very  eminent  statesman  until 
I  speak  of  that  occasion. 


LONDON.  — OFFICIAL  RECEPTIONS.       67 

A  great  number  of  invitations  Lad  been  given 
out  for  the  reception  at  Lady  Rosebery's, — 
over  two  thousand,  my  companion  heard  it  said. 
Whatever  the  number  was,  the  crowd  was  very 
great,  —  so  great  that  one  might  well  feel 
alarmed  for  the  safety  of  any  delicate  person 
who  was  in  the  pack  which  formed  itself  at  one 
place  in  the  course  of  the  evening.  Some  ob 
struction  must  have  existed  afronte,  and  the  vis 
a  tergo  became  fearful  in  its  pressure  on  those 
who  were  caught  in  the  jam.  I  began  thinking 
of  the  crushes  in  which  I  had  been  caught,  or 
which  I  had  read  and  heard  of :  the  terrible 
time  at  the  execution  of  Holloway  and  Haggerty, 
where  some  forty  persons  were  squeezed  or  tram 
pled  to  death  ;  the  Brooklyn  Theatre  and  other 
similar  tragedies  ;  the  crowd  I  was  in  at  the 
unveiling  of  the  statue  on  the  column  of  the 
Place  Vendome,  where  I  felt  as  one  may  suppose 
Giles  Corey  did  when,  in  his  misery,  he  called 
for  "more  weight"  to  finish  him.  But  there 
was  always  a  deus  ex  machina  for  us  when  we 
were  in  trouble.  Looming  up  above  the  crowd 
was  the  smiling  and  encouraging  countenance  of 
the  ever  active,  always  present,  always  helpful 


68        OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

Mr.  Smalley.  He  cleared  a  breathing  space  be 
fore  us.  For  a  short  time  it  was  really  a  for 
midable  wedging  together  of  people,  and  if  a 
lady  had  fainted  in  the  press,  she  might  have 
run  a  serious  risk  before  she  could  have  been 
extricated.  No  more  "  marble  halls  "  for  us,  if 
we  had  to  undergo  the  peine  forte  et  dure  as  the 
condition  of  our  presence !  We  were  both  glad 
to  escape  from  this  threatened  asphyxia,  and 
move  freely  about  the  noble  apartments.  Lady 
Kosebery,  who  was  kindness  itself,  would  have 
had  us  stay  and  sit  down  in  comfort  at  the  sup 
per-table,  after  the  crowd  had  thinned,  but  we 
were  tired  with  all  we  had  been  through,  and 
ordered  our  carriage.  Ordered  our  carriage  1 

"  I  can  call  spirits  from  the  vasty  deep."  .  .  . 
11  But  will  they  come  when  you  do  call  for  them  ?  '' 

The  most  formidable  thing  about  a  London 
party  is  getting  away  from  it.  "  C'est  le  dernier 
pas  qui  coute."  A  crowd  of  anxious  persons  in 
retreat  is  hanging  about  the  windy  door,  and  the 
breezy  stairway,  and  the  airy  hall. 

A  stentorian  voice,  hard  as  that  of  Khadaman- 
thus,  exclaims,  — 

"  Lady  Vere  de  Vere's  carriage  stops  the 
way !  " 


LONDON.  69 

If  my  Lady  Vere  de  Vere  is  not  on  hand,  and 
that  pretty  quickly,  off  goes  her  carriage,  and 
the  stern  voice  bawls  again,  — 

"  Mrs.  Smith's  carriage  stops  the  way  !  " 
Mrs.  Smith's  particular  Smith  may  be  worth 
his  millions  and  live  in  his  marble  palace ;  but 
if  Mrs.  Smith  thinks  her  coachman  is  going  to 
stand  with  his  horses  at  that  door  until  she  ap 
pears,  she  is  mistaken,  for  she  is  a  minute  late, 
and  now  the  coach  moves  on,  and  Rhadamanthus 
calls  aloud,  — 

"  Mrs.  Brown's  carriage  stops  the  way  !  " 
Half  the  lung  fevers  that  carry  off  the  great 
people  are  got  waiting  for  their  carriages. 

I  know  full  well  that  many  readers  would  be 
disappointed  if  I  did  not  mention  some  of  the 
grand  places  and  bring  in  some  of  the  great 
names  that  lend  their  lustre  to  London  society. 
We  were  to  go  to  a  fine  musical  party  at  Lady 
Rothschild's  on  the  evening  of  the  30th  of  May. 
It  happened  that  the  day  was  Sunday,  and  if  we 
had  been  as  punctilious  as  some  New  England 
Sabbatarians,  we  might  have  felt  compelled  to 
decline  the  tempting  invitation.  But  the  party 
was  given  by  a  daughter  of  Abraham,  and  in 


TO        OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

every  Hebrew  household  the  true  Sabbath  was 
over.  We  were  content  for  that  evening  to  shel 
ter  ourselves  under  the  old  dispensation. 

The  party,  or  concert,  was  a  very  brilliant 
affair.  Patti  sang  to  us,  and  a  tenor,  and  a 
violinist  played  for  us.  How  we  two  Americans 
came  to  be  in  so  favored  a  position  I  do  not 
know ;  all  I  do  know  is  that  we  were  shown  to 
our  places,  and  found  them  very  agreeable  ones. 
In  the  same  row  of  seats  was  the  Prince  of 
Wales,  two  chairs  off  from  A 's  seat.  Di 
rectly  in  front  of  A was  the  Princess  of 

Wales,  "  in  ruby  velvet,  with  six  rows  of  pearls 
encircling  her  throat,  and  two  more  strings  fall 
ing  quite  low ; "  and  next  her,  in  front  of  me, 
the  startling  presence  of  Lady  de  Grey,  formerly 
Lady  Lonsdale,  and  before  that  Gladys  Herbert. 
On  the  other  side  of  the  Princess  sat  the  Grand 
Duke  Michael  of  Russia. 

As  we  are  among  the  grandest  of  the  gran 
dees,  I  must  enliven  my  sober  account  with  an 
extract  from  my  companion's  diary :  — 

"  There  were  several  great  beauties  there, 
Lady  Claude  Hamilton,  a  queenly  blonde,  being 
one.  Minnie  Stevens  Paget  had  with  her  the 


WINDSOR.  71 

pretty  Miss  Langdon,  of  New  York.  Royalty 
had  one  room  for  supper,  with  its  attendant 
lords  and  ladies.  Lord  Rothschild  took  me 
down  to  a  long  table  for  a  sit-down  supper,  — 
there  were  some  thirty  of  us.  The  most  superb 
pink  orchids  were  on  the  table.  The  [Thane]  of 

sat  next  me,  and  how  he  stared  before  he 

was  introduced !  .  .  .  This  has  been  the  finest 
party  we  have  been  to,  sitting  comfortably  in 
such  a  beautiful  ball-room,  gazing  at  royalty  in 
the  flesh,  and  at  the  shades  of  departed  beauties 
on  the  wall,  by  Sir  Joshua  and  Gainsborough. 
It  was  a  new  experience  to  find  that  the  royal 
lions  fed  up-stairs,  and  mixed  animals  below !  " 

A  visit  to  Windsor  had  been  planned,  under 
the  guidance  of  a  friend  whose  kindness  had  al 
ready  shown  itself  in  various  forms,  and  who, 
before  we  left  England,  did  for  us  more  than  we 
could  have  thought  of  owing  to  any  one  person. 
This  gentleman,  Mr.  Willett,  of  Brighton,  called 
with  Mrs.  Willett  to  take  us  on  the  visit  which 
had  been  arranged  between  us. 

Windsor  Castle,  which  everybody  knows,  or 
can  easily  learn,  all  about,  is  one  of  the  largest 
of  those  huge  caverns  in  which  the  descendants 


72        OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

of  the  original  cave  men,  when  they  have  reached 
the  height  of  human  grandeur,  delight  to  shelter 
themselves.  It  seems  as  if  such  a  great  hollow 
quarry  of  rock  would  strike  a  chill  through 
every  tenant,  but  modern  improvements  reach 
even  the  palaces  of  kings  and  queens,  and  the 
regulation  temperature  of  the  castle,  or  of  its  in 
habited  portions,  is  fixed  at  sixty-five  degrees  of 
Fahrenheit.  The  royal  standard  was  not  float 
ing  from  the  tower  of  the  castle,  and  everything 
was  quiet  and  lonely.  We  saw  all  we  wanted 
to,  —  pictures,  furniture,  and  the  rest.  My 
namesake,  the  Queen's  librarian,  was  not  there 
to  greet  us,  or  I  should  have  had  a  pleasant 
half-hour  in  the  library  with  that  very  polite 
gentleman,  whom  I  had  afterwards  the  pleasure 
of  meeting  in  London. 

After  going  through  all  the  apartments  in  the 
castle  that  we  cared  to  see,  or  our  conductress 
cared  to  show  us,  we  drove  in  the  park,  along 
the  "  three-mile  walk,"  and  in  the  by-roads 
leading  from  it.  The  beautiful  avenue,  the  open 
spaces  with  scattered  trees  here  and  there,  made 
this  a  most  delightful  excursion.  I  saw  many 
fine  oaks,  one  about  sixteen  feet  of  honest  girth, 


WINDSOR.  — THE  HAWTHORN.  73 

but  no  one  which  was  very  remarkable.  I  wished 
I  could  have  compared  the  handsomest  of  them 
with  one  in  Beverly,  which  I  never  look  at  with 
out  taking  my  hat  off.  This  is  a  young  tree, 
with  a  future  before  it,  if  barbarians  do  not 
meddle  with  it,  more  conspicuous  for  its  spread 
than  its  circumference,  stretching  not  very  far 
from  a  hundred  feet  from  bough-end  to  bough- 
end.  I  do  not  think  I  saw  a  specimen  of  the 
British  Quercus  robur  of  such  consummate 
beauty.  But  I  know  from  Evelyn  and  Strutt 
what  England  has  to  boast  of,  and  I  will  not 
challenge  the  British  oak. 

Two  sensations  I  had  in  Windsor  park,  or 
forest,  for  I  am  not  quite  sure  of  the  boundary 
which  separates  them.  The  first  was  the  lovely 
sight  of  the  hawthorn  in  full  bloom.  I  had  al 
ways  thought  of  the  hawthorn  as  a  pretty  shrub, 
growing  in  hedges  ;  as  big  as  a  currant  bush  or 
a  barberry  bush,  or  some  humble  plant  of  that 
character.  I  was  surprised  to  see  it  as  a  tree, 
standing  by  itself,  and  making  the  most  deli 
cious  roof  a  pair  of  young  lovers  could  imagine 
to  sit  under.  It  looked  at  a  little  distance  like 
a  young  apple-tree  covered  with  new-fallen  snow. 


74        OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

I  shall  never  see  the  word  hawthorn  in  poetry 
again  without  the  image  of  the  snowy  but  far  from 
chilling  canopy  rising  before  me.  It  is  the  very 
bower  of  young  love,  and  must  have  done  more 
than  any  growth  of  the  forest  to  soften  the  doom 
brought  upon  man  by  the  fruit  of  the  forbidden 
tree.  No  wonder  that 

"  In  the  spring  a  young  man's  fancy  lightly  turns  to  thoughts 
of  love," 

with  the  object  of  his  affections  awaiting  him  in 
this  boudoir  of  nature.  What  a  pity  that  Zekle, 
who  courted  Huldy  over  the  apples  she  was 
peeling,  could  not  have  made  love  as  the  bucolic 
youth  does,  when 

"  Every  shepherd  tells  his  tale 
Under  the  hawthorn  in  the  dale  "  I 

(I  will  have  it  /ewe-tale,  in  spite  of  Warton's 
comment.)  But  I  suppose  it  does  not  make  so 
much  difference,  for  love  transmutes  the  fruit 
in  Huldy 's  lap  into  the  apples  of  the  Hesperides. 
In  this  way  it  is  that  the  associations  with  the 
poetry  we  remember  come  up  when  we  find  our 
selves  surrounded  by  English  scenery.  The 
great  poets  build  temples  of  song,  and  fill  them 
with  images  and  symbols  which  move  us  almost 


WINDSOR.  — THE  CUCKOO.  7"> 

to  adoration  ;  the  lesser  minstrels  fill  a  panel  or 
gild  a  cornice  here  and  there,  and  make  our 
hearts  glad  with  glimpses  of  beauty.  I  felt  all 
this  as  I  looked  around  and  saw  the  hawthorns 
in  full  bloom,  in  the  openings  among  the  oaks 
and  other  trees  of  the  forest.  Presently  I  heard 
a  sound  to  which  I  had  never  listened  before, 
and  which  I  have  never  heard  since  :  — 

Coooo  —  coooo ! 

Nature  had  sent  one  cuckoo  from  her  aviary 
to  sing  his  double  note  for  me,  that  I  might  not 
pass  away  from  her  pleasing  show  without  once 
hearing  the  call  so  dear  to  the  poets.  It  was 
the  last  day  of  spring.  A  few  more  days,  and 
the  solitary  voice  might  have  been  often  heard  ; 
for  the  bird  becomes  so  common  as  to  furnish 
Shakespeare  an  image  to  fit  "the  skipping 
king :  "  — 

"  He  was  but  as  the  cuckoo  is  in  June, 
Heard,  not  regarded." 

For  the  lyric  poets  the  cuckoo  is  "  companion  of 
the  spring,"  "  darling  of  the  spring  ;  "  coming 
with  the  daisy,  and  the  primrose,  and  the  blos 
soming  sweet-pea.  Where  the  sound  came  from 
I  could  not  tell;  it  puzzled  Wordsworth,  with 


76        OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 
younger  eyes  than  mine,  to  find  whence  issued 

"  that  cry 

Which  made  me  look  a  thousand  ways 
In  bush,  and  tree,  and  sky." 

Only  one  hint  of  the  prosaic  troubled  my  emo 
tional  delight:  I  could  not  help  thinking  how 
capitally  the  little  rogue  imitated  the  cuckoo 
clock,  with  the  sound  of  which  I  was  pretty  well 
acquainted. 

On  our  return  from  Windsor  we  had  to  get 
ready  for  another  great  dinner  with  our  Minis 
ter,  Mr.  Phelps.  As  we  are  in  the  habit  of  con 
sidering  our  great  officials  as  public  property, 
and  as  some  of  my  readers  want  as  many  glimpses 
of  high  life  as  a  decent  regard  to  republican 
sensibilities  will  permit,  I  will  borrow  a  few 
words  from  the  diary  to  which  I  have  often  re 
ferred  :  — 

"  The  Princess  Louise  was  there  with  the 
Marquis,  and  I  had  the  best  opportunity  of  see 
ing  how  they  receive  royalty  at  private  houses. 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Phelps  went  down  to  the  door  to 
meet  her  the  moment  she  came,  and  then  Mr. 
Phelps  entered  the  drawing-room  with  the  Prin 
cess  on  his  arm,  and  made  the  tour  of  the  room 


LONDON.  11 

with  her,  she  bowing  and  speaking  to  each  one 
of  us.  Mr.  Goschen  took  nie  in  to  dinner,  and 
Lord  Lome  was  on  my  other  side.  All  of  the 
flowers  were  of  the  royal  color,  red.  It  was  a 
grand  dinner.  .  .  .  The  Austrian  Ambassador, 
Count  Karoli,  took  Mrs.  Phelps  in  [to  dinner], 
his  position  being  higher  than  that  of  even  the 
Duke  [of  Argyll],  who  sat  upon  her  right." 

It  was  a  very  rich  experience  for  a  single  day : 
the  stately  abode  of  royalty,  with  all  its  mani 
fold  historical  recollections,  the  magnificent  av 
enue  of  forest  trees,  the  old  oaks,  the  hawthorn 
in  full  bloom,  and  the  one  cry  of  the  cuckoo, 
calling  me  back  to  Nature  in  her  spring-time 
freshness  and  glory  ;  then,  after  that,  a  great 
London  dinner-party  at  a  house  where  the  kind 
host  and  the  gracious  hostess  made  us  feel  at 
home,  and  where  we  could  meet  the  highest  peo 
ple  in  the  land,  —  the  people  whom  we  who  live 
in  a  simpler  way  at  home  are  naturally  pleased 
to  be  with  under  such  auspices.  What  of  all 
this  shall  I  remember  longest  ?  Let  me  not 
seem  ungrateful  to  my  friends  who  planned  the 
excursion  for  us,  or  to  those  who  asked  us  to  the 
brilliant  evening  entertainment,  but  I  feel  as 


78        OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

Wordsworth  felt  about  the  cuckoo,  —  he  will 
survive  all  the  other  memories. 

'  And  I  can  listen  to  thee  yet, 

Can  lie  upon  the  plain 
And  listen,  till  I  do  beget 
That  golden  time  again." 

Nothing  is  more  hackneyed  than  an  American's 
description  of  his  feelings  in  the  midst  of  the 
scenes  and  objects  he  has  read  of  all  his  days, 
and  is  looking  upon  for  the  first  time.  To  each 
of  us  it  appears  in  some  respects  in  the  same 
way,  but  with  a  difference  for  every  individual. 
We  may  smile  at  Irving's  emotions  at  the  first 
sight  of  a  distinguished  Englishman  on  his  own 
soil,  —  the  ingenious  Mr.  Roscoe,  as  an  earlier 
generation  would  have  called  him.  Our  tourists, 
who  are  constantly  going  forward  and  back  be 
tween  England  and  America,  lose  all  sense  of 
the  special  distinctions  between  the  two  coun 
tries  which  do  not  bear  on  their  personal  con 
venience.  Happy  are  those  who  go  with  unworn, 
unsatiated  sensibilities  from  the  New  World  to 
the  Old ;  as  happy,  it  may  be,  those  who  come 
from  the  Old  World  to  the  New,  but  of  that  I 
cannot  form  a  judgment. 


THE  HOUSES  OF  PARLIAMENT.          79 

On  the  first  day  of  Juno  we  called  by  appoint 
ment  upon  Mr.  Peel,  the  Speaker  of  the  House 
of  Commons,  and  went  through  the  Houses  of 
Parliament.  We  began  with  the  train-bearer, 
then  met  the  housekeeper,  and  presently  were 
joined  by  Mr.  Palgrave.  The  "Golden  Trea 
sury  "  stands  on  my  drawing-room  table  at  home, 
and  the  name  on  its  title-page  had  a  perfectly 
familiar  sound.  These  accidental  meetings  with 
persons  whom  we  know  by  their  publications 
are  very  pleasant  surprises. 

Among  other  things  to  which  Mr.  Palgrave 
called  our  attention  was  the  death-warrant  of 
Charles  the  First.  One  name  in  the  list  of  sign 
ers  naturally  fixed  our  eyes  upon  it.  It  was 
that  of  John  Dixwell.  A  lineal  descendant  of 
the  old  regicide  is  very  near  to  me  by  family 
connection,  Colonel  Dixwell  having  come  to  this 
country,  married,  and  left  a  posterity,  which  has 
resumed  the  name,  dropped  for  the  sake  of  safety 
at  the  time  when  he,  Goffe,  and  Whalley  were 
in  concealment  in  various  parts  of  New  Eng 
land. 

We  lunched  with  the  Speaker,  and  had  the 
pleasure  of  the  company  of  Archdeacon  Farrar. 


80        OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

In  the  afternoon  we  went  to  a  tea  at  a  very 
grand  house,  where,  as  my  companion  says  in 
her  diary,  "  it  took  full  six  men  in  red  satin 
knee-breeches  to  let  us  in."  Another  grand  per 
sonage  asked  us  to  dine  with  her  at  her  country 
place,  but  we  were  too  full  of  engagements.  In 
the  evening  we  went  to  a  large  reception  at  Mr. 
Gosse's.  It  was  pleasant  to  meet  artists  and 
scholars,  —  the  kind  of  company  to  which  we 
are  much  used  in  our  esthetic  city.  I  found 
our  host  as  agreeable  at  home  as  he  was  when  in 
Boston,  where  he  became  a  favorite,  both  as  a 
lecturer  and  as  a  visitor. 

Another  day  we  visited  Stafford  House,  where 
Lord  Ronald  Gower,  himself  an  artist,  did  the 
honors  of  the  house,  showing  us  the  pictures  and 
sculptures,  his  own  included,  in  a  very  obliging 
and  agreeable  way.  I  have  often  taken  note  of 
the  resemblances  of  living  persons  to  the  por 
traits  and  statues  of  their  remote  ancestors.  In 
showing  us  the  portrait  of  one  of  his  own  far- 
back  progenitors,  Lord  Ronald  placed  a  photo 
graph  of  himself  in  the  corner  of  the  frame. 
The  likeness  was  so  close  that  the  photograph 
might  seem  to  have  been  copied  from  the  paint- 


LONDON.  81 

ing,  the  dress  only  being  changed.  The  Duke  of 
Sutherland,  who  had  just  come  back  from  Amer 
ica,  complained  that  the  dinners  and  lunches  had 
used  him  up.  I  was  fast  learning  how  to  sym 
pathize  with  him. 

Then  to  Grosvenor  House  to  see  the  pictures. 
I  best  remember  Gainsborough's  beautiful  Blue 
Boy,  commonly  so  called,  from  the  color  of  his 
dress,  and  Sir  Joshua's  Mrs.  Siddons  as  the 
Tragic  Muse,  which  everybody  knows  in  engrav 
ings.  We  lunched  in  clerical  company  that  day, 
at  the  Bishop  of  Gloucester  and  Bristol's,  with 
the  Archbishop  of  York,  the  Reverend  Mr. 

Haweis,  and  others  as  guests.    I  told  A that 

she  was  not  sufficiently  impressed  with  her  po 
sition  at  the  side  of  an  archbishop ;  she  was 
not  crumbling  bread  in  her  nervous  excitement. 
The  company  did  not  seem  to  remember  Sydney 
Smith's  remark  to  the  young  lady  next  him  at  a 
dinner-party  :  "  My  dear,  I  see  you  are  nervous, 
by  your  crumbling  your  bread  as  you  do.  / 
always  crumble  bread  when  I  sit  by  a  bishop, 
and  when  I  sit  by  an  archbishop  I  crumble 
bread  with  both  hands."  That  evening  I  had 
the  pleasure  of  dining  with  the  distinguished 


82        CUE  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

Mr.  Bryce,  whose  acquaintance  I  made  in  our 
own  country,  through  my  son,  who  has  intro 
duced  me  to  many  agreeable  persons  of  his  own 
generation,  with  whose  companionship  I  am  glad' 
to  mend  the  broken  and  merely  fragmentary 
circle  of  old  friendships. 

The  3d  of  June  was  a  memorable  day  for  us, 
for  on  the  evening  of  that  day  we  were  to  hold 
our  reception.  If  Dean  Bradley  had  proposed 
our  meeting  our  guests  in  the  Jerusalem  cham 
ber,  I  should  hardly  have  been  more  astonished. 
But  these  kind  friends  meant  what  they  said, 
and  put  the  offer  in  such  a  shape  that  it  was 
impossible  to  resist  it.  So  we  sent  out  our 
cards  to  a  few  hundreds  of  persons,  —  those 
who  we  thought  might  like  invitations.  I  was 
particularly  desirous  that  many  members  of  the 
medical  profession  whom  I  had  not  met,  but 
who  felt  well  disposed  towards  me,  should  be 
at  this  gathering.  The  meeting  was  in  every 
respect  a  success.  I  wrote  a  prescription  for  as 
many  baskets  of  champagne  as  would  be  con 
sistent  with  the  well-being  of  our  guests,  and 
such  light  accompaniments  as  a  London  company 
is  wont  to  expect  under  similar  circumstances. 


LONDON.  — OUR  RECEPTION.  83 

My  own  recollections  of  the  evening,  unclouded 
by  its  festivities,  but  confused  by  its  multitudi 
nous  succession  of  introductions,  are  about  as 
definite  as  the  Duke  of  Wellington's  alleged 
monosyllabic  description  of  the  battle  of  Water 
loo.  But  A writes  in  her  diary  :  "  From 

nine  to  twelve  we  stood,  receiving  over  three 
hundred  people  out  of  the  four  hundred  and  fifty 
we  invited."  As  I  did  not  go  to  Europe  to  visit 
hospitals  or  museums,  I  might  have  missed  seeing 
some  of  those  professional  brethren  whose  names 
I  hold  in  honor  and  whose  writings  are  in  my 
library.  If  any  such  failed  to  receive  our  cards 
of  invitation,  it  was  an  accident  which,  if  I  had 
known,  I  should  have  deeply  regretted.  So 
far  as  we  could  judge  by  all  we  heard,  our 
unpretentious  party  gave  general  satisfaction. 
Many  different  social  circles  were  represented, 
but  it  passed  off  easily  and  agreeably.  I  can 
say  this  more  freely,  as  the  credit  of  it  belongs 
so  largely  to  the  care  and  self-sacrificing  efforts 
of  Dr.  Priestley  and  his  charming  wife. 

I  never  refused  to  write  in  the  birthday  book 
or  the  album  of  the  humblest  schoolgirl  or 
schoolboy,  and  I  could  not  refuse  to  set  my 


84        OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

name,  with  a  verse  from  one  of  my  poems,  in 
the  album  of  the  Princess  of  Wales,  which  was 
sent  me  for  that  purpose.  It  was  a  nice  new 
book,  with  only  two  or  three  names  in  it,  and 
those  of  musical  composers,  —  Rubinstein's,  I 
think,  was  one  of  them,  —  so  that  I  felt  honored 
by  the  great  lady's  request.  I  ought  to  describe 
the  book,  but  I  only  remember  that  it  was  quite 
large  and  sumptuously  elegant,  and  that  I  copied 
into  it  the  last  verse  of  a  poem  of  mine  called 
"  The  Chambered  Nautilus,"  as  I  have  often 
done  for  plain  republican  albums. 

The  day  after  our  simple  reception  was  nota 
ble  for  three  social  events  in  which  we  had  our 
part.  The  first  was  a  lunch  at  the  house  of 
Mrs.  Cyril  Flower,  one  of  the  finest  in  London, 
—  Surrey  House,  as  it  is  called.  Mr.  Brown 
ing,  who  seems  to  go  everywhere,  and  is  one  of 
the  vital  elements  of  London  society,  was  there 
as  a  matter  of  course.  Miss  Cobbe,  many  of 
whose  essays  I  have  read  with  great  satisfaction, 
though  I  cannot  accept  all  her  views,  was  a  guest 
whom  I  was  very  glad  to  meet  a  second  time. 

In  the  afternoon  we  went  to  a  garden-party 
given  by  the  Princess  Louise  at  Kensington 


LONDON.  — A    GARDEN-PARTY.  85 

Palace,  a  gloomy-looking  edifice,  which  might 
be  taken  for  a  hospital  or  a  poorhouse.  Of  all 
the  festive  occasions  which  I  attended,  the  gar 
den-parties  were  to  me  the  most  formidable. 
They  are  all  very  well  for  young  people,  and  for 
those  who  do  not  mind  the  nipping  and  eager 
air,  with  which,  as  I  have  said,  the  climate  of 
England,  no  less  than  that  of  America,  falsifies 
all  the  fine  things  the  poets  have  said  about 
May,  and,  I  may  add,  even  June.  We  wan 
dered  about  the  grounds,  spoke  with  the  great 
people,  stared  at  the  odd  ones,  and  said  to  our 
selves,  —  at  least  I  said  to  myself,  —  with  Ham- 
let, 

"  The  air  bites  shrewdly,  it  is  very  cold." 

The  most  curious  personages  were  some  East  In 
dians,  a  chocolate-colored  laxly,  her  husband,  and 
children.  The  mother  had  a  diamond  on  the 
side  of  her  nose,  its  setting  riveted  on  the  in 
side,  one  might  suppose  ;  the  effect  was  peculiar, 

far   from    captivating.     A said    that    she 

should  prefer  the  good  old-fashioned  nose-ring, 
as  we  find  it  described  and  pictured  by  travel 
lers.  She  saw  a  great  deal  more  than  I  did,  of 
course.  I  quote  from  her  diary :  "  The  little 


86        OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

Eastern  children  made  their  native  salaam  to  the 
Princess  by  prostrating  themselves  flat  on  their 
little  stomachs  in  front  of  her,  putting  their 
hands  between  her  feet,  pushing  them  aside,  and 
kissing  the  print  of  her  feet !  " 

I  really  believe  one  or  both  of  us  would  have 
run  serious  risks  of  catching  our  "  death  o' 
cold,"  if  we  had  waited  for  our  own  carriage, 
which  seemed  forever  in  coming  forward.  The 
good  Lady  Holland,  who  was  more  than  once 
our  guardian  angel,  brought  us  home  in  hers. 
So  we  got  warmed  up  at  our  own  hearth,  and 
were  ready  in  due  season  for  the  large  and  fine 
dinner-party  at  Archdeacon  Farrar's,  where, 
among  other  guests,  were  Mrs.  Phelps,  our  Min 
ister's  wife,  who  is  a  great  favorite  alike  with 
Americans  and  English,  Sir  John  Millais,  Mr. 
Tyndall,  and  other  interesting  people. 

I  am  sorry  that  we  could  not  have  visited 
Newstead  Abbey.  I  had  a  letter  from  Mr. 
Thornton  Lothrop  to  Colonel  Webb,  the  present 
proprietor,  with  whom  we  lunched.  I  have 
spoken  of  the  pleasure  I  had  when  I  came  ac 
cidentally  upon  persons  with  whose  name  and 
fame  I  had  long  been  acquainted.  A  similar 


LONDON.  87 

impression  was  that  whi/h  I  received  when  I 
found  myself  in  the  company  of  the  bearer  of 
an  old  historic  name.  When  my  host  at  the 
lunch  introduced  a  stately-looking  gentleman  as 
Sir  Kenelin  Digby,  it  gave  me  a  start,  as  if  a 
ghost  had  stood  before  me.  I  recovered  myself 
immediately,  however,  for  there  was  nothing  of 
the  impalpable  or  immaterial  about  the  stalwart 
personage  who  bore  the  name.  I  wanted  to  ask 
him  if  he  carried  any  of  his  ancestor's  "  powder 
of  sympathy  "  about  with  him.  Many,  but  not 
all,  of  my  readers  remember  that  famous  man's 
famous  preparation.  When  used  to  cure  a 
wound,  it  was  applied  to  the  weapon  that  made 
it ;  the  part  was  bound  up  so  as  to  bring  the 
edges  of  the  wound  together,  and  by  the  won 
drous  influence  of  the  sympathetic  powder  the 
healing  process  took  place  in  the  kindest  possi 
ble  manner.  Sir  Kenelm,  the  ancestor,  was  a 
gallant  soldier,  a  grand  gentleman,  and  the  hus 
band  of  a  wonderfully  beautiful  wife,  whose 
charms  he  tried  to  preserve  from  the  ravages  of 
tune  by  various  experiments.  He  was  also  the 
homoeopathist  of  his  day,  the  Elisha  Perkins 
(metallic  tractors)  of  his  generation.  The 


88       OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

"  mind  cure "  people  might  adopt  him  as  one 
of  their  precursors. 

I  heard  a  curious  statement  which  was  illus 
trated  in  the  person  of  one  of  the  gentlemen  we 
met  at  this  table.  It  is  that  English  sport 
ing  men  are  often  deaf  on  one  side,  in  conse 
quence  of  the  noise  of  the  frequent  discharge  of 
their  guns  affecting  the  right  ear.  This  is  a 
very  convenient  infirmity  for  gentlemen  who  in 
dulge  in  slightly  aggressive  remarks,  but  when 
they  are  hit  back  never  seem  to  be  conscious  at 
all  of  the  riposte,  —  the  return  thrust  of  the 
fencer. 

Dr.  Allchin  called  and  took  me  to  a  dinner, 
where  I  met  many  professional  brothers,  and  en 
joyed  myself  highly. 

By  this  time  every  day  was  pledged  for  one 
or  more  engagements,  so  that  many  very  attrac 
tive  invitations  had  to  be  declined.  I  will  not 
follow  the  days  one  by  one,  but  content  myself 
with  mentioning  some  of  the  more  memorable 
visits.  I  had  been  invited  to  the  Rabelais  Club, 
as  I  have  before  mentioned,  by  a  cable  message. 
This  is  a  club  of  which  the  late  Lord  Hough  ton 
was  president,  and  of  which  I  am  a  member,  as 


WESTMINSTER  ABBEY.  89 

are  several  other  Americans.  I  was  afraid  that 
the  gentlemen  who  met, 

"  To  laugh  and  shake  in  Rabelais's  easy-chair," 

might  be  more  hilarious  and  demonstrative  in 
their  mirth  than  I,  a  sober  New  Englander  in 
the  superfluous  decade,  might  find  myself  equal 
to.  But  there  was  no  uproarious  jollity  ;  on  the 
contrary,  it  was  a  pleasant  gathering  of  literary 
people  and  artists,  who  took  their  pleasure  not 
sadly,  but  serenely,  and  I  do  not  remember  a 
single  explosive  guffaw. 

Another  day,  after  going  all  over  Dudley 
House,  including  Lady  Dudley's  boudoir,  "  in 
light  blue  satin,  the  prettiest  room  we  have 

seen,"  A says,  we  went,  by  appointment,  to 

Westminster  Abbey,  where  we  spent  two  hours 
under  the  guidance  of  Archdeacon  Farrar.  I 
think  no  part  of  the  Abbey  is  visited  with  so 
much  interest  as  Poets'  Corner.  We  are  all 
familiarly  acquainted  with  it  beforehand.  We 
are  all  ready  for  "  O  rare  Ben  Jonson  !  "  as  we 
stand  over  the  place  where  he  was  planted  stand 
ing  upright,  as  if  he  had  been  dropped  into  a 
post-hole.  We  remember  too  well  the  foolish 
and  flippant  mockery  of  Gay's  "  Life  is  a  Jest" 


90        OUR   HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

If  I  were  dean  of  the  cathedral,  I  should  be 
tempted  to  alter  the  «/to  a  O.  Then  we  could 
read  it  without  contempt ;  for  life  is  a  gest,  an 
achievement,  —  or  always  ought  to  be.  West 
minster  Abbey  is  too  crowded  with  monuments 
to  the  illustrious  dead  and  those  who  have  been 
considered  so  in  their  day  to  produce  any  other 
than  a  confused  impression.  When  we  visit 
the  tomb  of  Napoleon  at  the  Invalides,  no  side 
lights  interfere  with  the  view  before  us  in  the 
field  of  mental  vision.  We  see  the  Emperor ; 
Marengo,  Austerlitz,  Waterloo,  Saint  Helena, 
come  before  us,  with  him  as  their  central  figure. 
So  at  Stratford,  —  the  Cloptons  and  the  John 
a  Combes,  with  all  their  memorials,  cannot  make 
us  lift  our  eyes  from  the  stone  which  covers  the 
dust  that  once  breathed  and  walked  the  streets 
of  Stratford  as  Shakespeare. 

Ah,  but  here  is  one  marble  countenance  that 
I  know  full  well,  and  knew  for  many  a  year  in 
the  flesh  !  Is  there  an  American  who  sees  the 
bust  of  Longfellow  among  the  effigies  of  the 
great  authors  of  England  without  feeling  a  thrill 
of  pleasure  at  recognizing  the  features  of  his 
native  fellow-countryman  in  the  Valhalla  of  his 


WESTMINSTER  ABBEY.  91 

ancestral  fellow-countrymen  ?  There  are  many 
memorials  in  Poets'  Corner  and  elsewhere  in  the 
Abbey  which  could  be  better  spared  than  that. 
Too  many  that  were  placed  there  as  luminaries 
have  become  conspicuous  by  their  pbscurity  in 
the  midst  of  that  illustrious  company.  On  the 
whole,  the  Abbey  produces  a  distinct  sense  of 
being  overcrowded.  It  appears  too  much  like 
a  lapidary's  store-room.  Look  up  at  the  lofty 
roof,  which  we  willingly  pardon  for  shutting  out 
the  heaven  above  us,  —  at  least  in  an  average 
London  day  ;  look  down  at  the  floor,  and  think 
of  what  precious  relics  it  covers  ;  but  do  not 
look  around  you  with  the  hope  of  getting  any 
clear,  concentrated,  satisfying  effect  from  this 
great  museum  of  gigantic  funereal  bricabrac. 
Pardon  me,  shades  of  the  mighty  dead  !  I  had 
something  of  this  feeling,  but  at  another  hour  I 
might  perhaps  be  overcome  by  emotion,  and 
weep,  as  my  fellow-countryman  did  at  the  grave 
of  the  earliest  of  his  ancestors.  I  should  love 
myself  better  in  that  aspect  than  I  do  in  this 
cold-blooded  criticism  ;  but  it  suggested  itself, 
and  as  no  flattery  can  soothe,  so  no  censure  can 
wound,  "  the  dull,  cold  ear  of  death." 


92        OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

Of  course  we  saw  all  the  sights  of  the  Abbey 
in  a  hurried  way,  yet  with  such  a  guide  and  ex 
positor  as  Archdeacon  Farrar  our  two  hours' 
visit  was  worth  a  whole  day  with  an  undiscrim- 
inating  verger,  who  recites  his  lesson  by  rote, 
and  takes  the  life  out  of  the  little  mob  that  fol 
lows  him  round  by  emphasizing  the  details  of 
his  lesson,  until  "  Patience  on  a  monument " 
seems  to  the  sufferer,  who  knows  what  he  wants 
and  what  he  does  not  want,  the  nearest  emblem 
of  himself  he  can  think  of.  Amidst  all  the  im 
posing  recollections  of  the  ancient  edifice,  one 
impressed  me  in  the  inverse  ratio  of  its  impor 
tance.  The  Archdeacon  pointed  out  the  little 
holes  in  the  stones,  in  one  place,  where  the  boys 
of  the  choir  used  to  play  marbles,  before 
America  was  discovered,  probably,  —  centuries 
before,  it  may  be.  It  is  a  strangely  impressive 
glimpse  of  a  living  past,  like  the  graffiti  of  Pom 
peii.  I  find  it  is  often  the  accident  rather  than 
the  essential  which  fixes  my  attention  and  takes 
hold  of  my  memory.  This  is  a  tendency  of 
which  I  suppose  I  ought  to  be  ashamed,  if 
we  have  any  right  to  be  ashamed  of  those 
idiosyncrasies  which  are  ordered  for  us.  It  is 


WESTMINSTER  ABBEY.  93 

the  same  tendency  which  often  leads  us  to  prefer 
the  picturesque  to  the  beautiful.  Mr.  Gilpin 
liked  the  donkey  in  a  forest  landscape  better  than 
the  horse.  A  touch  of  imperfection  interferes 
with  the  beauty  of  an  object  and  lowers  its  level 
to  that  of  the  picturesque.  The  accident  of  the 
holes  in  the  stone  of  the  noble  building,  for  the 
boys  to  play  marbles  with,  makes  me  a  boy 
auain  and  at  home  with  them,  after  looking  with 
awe  upon  the  statue  of  Newton,  and  turning 
with  a  shudder  from  the  ghastly  monument  of 
Mrs.  Nightingale. 

What  a  life  must  be  that  of  one  whose  years 
are  passed  chiefly  in  and  about  the  great  Abbey ! 
Nowhere  does  Macbeth's  expression  "  dusty 
death  "  seem  so  true  to  all  around  us.  The  dust 
of  those  who  have  been  lying  century  after  cen 
tury  below  the  marbles  piled  over  them,  —  the 
dust  on  the  monuments  they  lie  beneath  ;  the 
dust  on  the  memories  those  monuments  were 
raised  to  keep  living  in  the  recollection  of  pos 
terity,  —  dust,  dust,  dust,  everywhere,  and  we 
ourselves  but  shapes  of  breathing  dust  moving 
amidst  these  objects  and  remembrances  !  Come 
away !  The  good  Archdeacon  of  the  "  Eternal 


94        OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

Hope  "  has  asked  us  to  take  a  cup  of  tea  with 
him.  The  tea-cup  will  be  a  cheerful  substitute 
for  the  funeral  urn,  and  a  freshly  made  infusion 
of  the  fragrant  leaf  is  one  of  the  best  things  in 
the  world  to  lay  the  dust  of  sad  reflections. 

It  is  a  somewhat  fatiguing  pleasure  to  go 
through  the  Abbey,  in  spite  of  the  intense  in 
terest  no  one  can  help  feeling.  But  my  day  had 
but  just  begun  when  the  two  hours  we  had  de 
voted  to  the  visit  were  over.  At  a  quarter  before 
eight,  my  friend  Mr.  Frederick  Locker  called 
for  me  to  go  to  a  dinner  at  the  Literary  Club. 
I  was  particularly  pleased  to  dine  with  this  asso 
ciation,  as  it  reminded  me  of  our  own  Saturday 
Club,  which  sometimes  goes  by  the  same  name 
as  the  London  one.  They  complimented  me 
with  a  toast,  and  I  made  some  kind  of  a  reply. 
As  I  never  went  prepared  with  a  speech  for  any 
such  occasion,  I  take  it  for  granted  that  I 
thanked  the  company  in  a  way  that  showed  my 
gratitude  rather  than  my  eloquence.  And  now, 
the  dinner  being  over,  my  day  was  fairly  begun. 

This  was  to  be  a  memorable  date  in  the  rec 
ord  of  the  year,  one  long  to  be  remembered  in 
the  political  history  of  Great  Britain.  For  on 


MR.   GLADSTONE'S  SPEECH.  95 

this  day,  the  7th  of  June,  Mr.  Gladstone  was  to 
make  his  great  speech  on  the  Irish  question,  and 
the  division  of  the  House  on  the  Government 
of  Ireland  Bill  was  to  take  place.  The  whole 
country,  to  the  corners  of  its  remotest  colony, 
was  looking  forward  to  the  results  of  this  even 
ing's  meeting  of  Parliament.  The  kindness  of 
the  Speaker  had  furnished  me  with  a  ticket,  en 
titling  me  to  a  place  among  the  "  distinguished 
guests,"  which  I  presented  without  modestly 
questioning  my  right  to  the  title. 

The  pressure  for  entrance  that  evening  was 
very  great,  and  I,  coming  after  my  dinner  with 
the  Literary  Club,  was  late  upon  the  ground. 
The  places  for  "  distinguished  guests  "  were  al 
ready  filled.  But  all  England  was  in  a  conspi 
racy  to  do  everything  possible  to  make  my  visit 
agreeable.  I  did  not  take  up  a  great  deal  of 
room,  —  I  might  be  put  into  a  seat  with  the  am 
bassadors  and  foreign  ministers.  And  among 
them  I  was  presently  installed.  It  was  now 
between  ten  and  eleven  o'clock,  as  nearly  as  I 
recollect.  The  House  had  been  in  session  since 
four  o'clock.  A  gentleman  was  speaking,  who 
was,  as  my  unknown  next  neighbor  told  me,  Sir 


96   OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

Michael  Hicks-Beach,  a  leading  member,  as  we 
all  know,  of  the  opposition.  When  he  sat  down 
there  was  a  hush  of  expectation,  and  presently 
Mr.  Gladstone  rose  to  his  feet.  A  great  burst 
of  applause  welcomed  him,  lasting  more  than  a 
minute.  His  clean-cut  features,  his  furrowed 
cheeks,  his  scanty  and  whitened  hair,  his  well- 
shaped  but  not  extraordinary  head,  all  familiar 
ized  by  innumerable  portraits  and  emphasized  in 
hundreds  of  caricatures,  revealed  him  at  once  to 
every  spectator.  His  great  speech  has  been  uni- 
v,ersally  read,  and  I  need  only  speak  of  the  way 
in  which  it  was  delivered.  His  manner  was 
forcible  rather  than  impassioned  or  eloquent ; 
his  voice  was  clear  enough,  but  must  have 
troubled  him  somewhat,  for  he  had  a  small  bot 
tle  from  which  he  poured  something  into  a  glass 
from  time  to  time  and  swallowed  a  little,  yet  I 
heard  him  very  well  for  the  most  part.  In  the 
last  portion  of  his  speech  he  became  animated 
and  inspiriting,  and  his  closing  words  were  ut 
tered  with  an  impressive  solemnity :  "  Think,  I 
beseech  you,  think  well,  think  wisely,  think  not 
for  a  moment,  but  for  the  years  that  are  to 
come,  before  you  reject  this  bill." 


MR.   GLADSTONE'S  SPEECH.  97 

After  the  burst  of  applause  which  followed 
the  conclusion  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  speech,  the 
House  proceeded  to  the  division  on  the  question 
of  passing  the  bill  to  a  second  reading.  While 
the  counting  of  the  votes  was  going  on  there  was 
the  most  intense  excitement.  A  rumor  ran  round 
the  House  at  one  moment  that  the  vote  was  go 
ing  in  favor  of  the  second  reading.  It  soon  be 
came  evident  that  this  was  not  the  case,  and 
presently  the  result  was  announced,  giving  a  ma 
jority  of  thirty  against  the  bill,  and  practically 
overthrowing  the  liberal  administration.  Then 
arose  a  tumult  of  applause  from  the  conserva 
tives  and  a  wild  confusion,  in  the  midst  of  which 
an  Irish  member  shouted,  "  Three  cheers  for  the 
Grand  Old  Man  !  "  which  were  lustily  given, 
with  waving  of  hats  and  all  but  Donnybrook 
manifestations  of  enthusiasm. 

I  forgot  to  mention  that  I  had  a  very  advanta 
geous  seat  among  the  diplomatic  gentlemen,  and 
was  felicitating  myself  on  occupying  one  of  the 
best  positions  in  the  House,  when  an  usher 
politely  informed  me  that  the  Russian  Ambassa 
dor,  in  whose  place  I  was  sitting,  had  arrived, 
and  that  I  must  submit  to  the  fate  of  eviction. 


98        OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

Fortunately,  there  were  some  steps  close  by,  on 
one  of  which  I  found  a  seat  almost  as  good  as 
the  one  I  had  just  left. 

It  was  now  two  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and 
I  had  to  walk  home,  not  a  vehicle  being  attain 
able.  I  did  not  know  my  way  to  my  headquar 
ters,  and  I  had  no  friend  to  go  with  me,  but  I 
fastened  on  a  stray  gentleman,  who  proved  to  be 
an  ex-member  of  the  House,  and  who  accom 
panied  me  to  17  Dover  Street,  where  I  sought 
my  bed  with  a  satisfying  sense  of  having  done 
a  good  day's  work  and  having  been  well  paid 
for  it. 


III. 

ON  the  8th  of  June  we  visited  the  Record 
Office  for  a  sight  of  the  Domesday  Book  and 
other  ancient  objects  of  interest  there  preserved. 
As  I  looked  at  this  too  faithful  memorial  of  an 
inexorable  past,  I  thought  of  the  battle  of  Hast 
ings  and  all  its  consequences,  and  that  reminded 
me  of  what  I  have  long  remembered  as  I  read 
it  in  Dr.  Robert  Knox's  "  Races  of  Men."  Dr. 
Knox  was  the  monoculous  Waterloo  surgeon, 
with  whom  I  remember  breakfasting,  on  my 
first  visit  to  England  and  Scotland.  His  cele 
brity  is  less  owing  to  his  book  than  to  the  un 
fortunate  connection  of  his  name  with  the  un- 
forgotten  Burke  and  Hare  horrors.  This  is  his 
language  in  speaking  of  Hastings  :**..«  that 
bloody  field,  surpassing  far  in  its  terrible  results 
the  unhappy  day  of  Waterloo.  From  this  the 
Celt  has  recovered,  but  not  so  the  Saxon.  To  this 
day  he  feels,  and  feels  deeply,  the  most  disas 
trous  day  that  ever  befell  his  race ;  here  he  was 


100     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

trodden  down  by  the  Norman,  whose  iron  heel 
is  on  him  yet.  ...  To  this  day  the  Saxon  race 
in  England  have  never  recovered  a  tithe  of 
their  rights,  and  probably  never  will." 

The  Conqueror  meant  to  have  a  thorough 
summing  up  of  his  stolen  property.  The  Anglo- 
Saxon  Chronicle  says,  —  I  quote  it  at  second 
hand,  —  "  So  very  straitly  did  he  cause  the  sur 
vey  to  be  made,  that  there  was  not  a  single  hyde, 
nor  a  yardland  of  ground,  nor  —  it  is  shameful 
to  say  what  he  thought  no  shame  to  do  —  was 
there  an  ox  or  a  cow,  or  a  pig  passed  by,  and 
that  was  not  down  in  the  accounts,  and  then  all 
these  writings  were  brought  to  him."  The 
"  looting "  of  England  by  William  and  his 
"twenty  thousand  thieves,"  as  Mr.  Emerson 
calls  his  army,  was  a  singularly  methodical  pro 
ceeding,  and  Domesday  Book  is  a  searching  in 
ventory  of  their  booty,  movable  and  immovable. 

From  this  reminder  of  the  past  we  turned  to 

the  remembrances  of  home ;  A going  to 

dine  with  a  transplanted  Boston  friend  and 
other  ladies  from  that  blessed  centre  of  New 
England  life,  while  I  dined  with  a  party  of 
gentlemen  at  my  friend  Mr.  James  Russell  Low 
ell's. 


DINNER  AT  MR.  LOWELL'S.  101 

I  had  looked  forward  to  this  meeting  with 
high  expectations,  and  they  were  abundantly 
satisfied.  I  knew  that  Mr.  Lowell  must  gather 
about  him,  wherever  he  might  be,  the  choicest 
company,  but  what  his  selection  would  be  I  was 
curious  to  learn.  I  found  with  me  at  the  table 
my  own  countrymen  and  his,  Mr.  Smalley  and 
Mr.  Henry  James.  Of  the  other  guests,  Mr. 
Leslie  Stephen  was  my  only  old  acquaintance  in 
person ;  but  Du  Maurier  and  Tenniel  I  have  met 
in  my  weekly  "  Punch  "  for  many  a  year  ;  Mr. 
Lang,  Mr.  Oliphant,  Mr.  Townsend,  we  all  know 
through  their  writings  ;  Mr.  Burne  Jones  and 
Mr.  Alma  Tadema,  through  the  frequent  repro 
ductions  of  their  works  in  engravings,  as  well  as 
by  their  paintings.  If  I  could  report  a  din 
ner-table  conversation,  I  might  be  tempted  to 
say  something  of  my  talk  with  Mr.  Oliphaut. 
I  like  well  enough  conversation  which  floats 

O 

safely  over  the  shallows,  touching  bottom  at 
intervals  with  a  commonplace  incident  or  truism 
to  push  it  along ;  I  like  better  to  find  a  few 
fathoms  of  depth  under  the  surface ;  there  is 
a  still  higher  pleasure  in  the  philosophical  dis 
course  which  calls  for  the  deep  sea  line  to  reach 


102     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

bottom  ;  but  best  of  all,  when  one  is  in  the  right 
mood,  is  the  contact  of  intelligences  when  they 
are  off  soundings  in  the  ocean  of  thought.  Mr. 
Oliphant  is  what  many  of  us  call  a  mystic,  and 
I  found  a  singular  pleasure  in  listening  to  him. 
This  dinner  at  Mr.  Lowell's  was  a  very  remark 
able  one  for  the  men  it  brought  together,  and  I 
remember  it  with  peculiar  interest.  My  enter 
tainer  holds  a  master-key  to  London  society, 
and  he  opened  the  gate  for  me  into  one  of  its 
choicest  preserves  on  that  evening. 

I  did  not  undertake  to  renew  my  old  acquaint 
ance  with  hospitals  and  museums.  I  regretted 
that  I  could  not  be  with  my  companion,  who 
went  through  the  Natural  History  Museum  with 
the  accomplished  director,  Professor  "W.  H. 
Flower.  One  old  acquaintance  I  did  resuscitate. 
For  the  second  time  I  took  the  hand  of  Charles 
O'Byrne,  the  celebrated  Irish  giant  of  the  last 
century.  I  met  him,  as  in  my  first  visit,  at  the 
Royal  College  of  Surgeons,  where  I  accompa 
nied  Mr.  Jonathan  Hutchinson.  He  was  in  the 
condition  so  longed  for  by  Sydney  Smith  on  a 
very  hot  day ;  namely,  with  his  flesh  taken  off, 
and  sitting,  or  rather  standing,  in  his  bones. 


VISIT  TO  TENNYSON.  103 

The  skeleton  measures  eight  feet,  and  the  living 
man's  height  is  stated  as  having  been  eight  feet 
two,  or  four  inches,  by  different  authorities.  His 
hand  was  the  only  one  I  took,  either  in  England 
or  Scotland,  which  had  not  a  warm  grasp  and  a 
hearty  welcome  in  it. 

A went  with  Boston  friends  to  see  "  Faust " 

a  second  time,  Mr.  Irving  having  offered  her  the 
Royal  box,  and  the  polite  Mr.  Bram  Stoker  serv 
ing  the  party  with  tea  in  the  little  drawing-room 
behind  the  box  ;  so  that  she  had  a  good  time 
while  I  was  enjoying  myself  at  a  dinner  at  Sir 
Henry  Thompson's,  where  I  met  Mr.  Gladstone, 
Mr.  Browning,  and  other  distinguished  gentle 
men.  These  dinners  of  Sir  Henry's  are  well 
known  for  the  good  company  one  meets  at  them, 
and  I  felt  myself  honored  to  be  a  guest  on  this 
occasion. 

Among  the  pleasures  I  had  promised  myself 
was  that  of  a  visit  to  Tennyson,  at  the  Isle  of 
Wight.  I  feared,  however,  that  this  would  be 
rendered  impracticable  by  reason  of  the  very 
recent  death  of  his  younger  son,  Lionel.  But 
I  learned  from  Mr.  Locker-Lam pson,  whose 
daughter  Mr.  Lionel  Tennyson  had  married, 


104     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

that  the  poet  would  be  pleased  to  see  me  at  his 
place,  Farringford ;  and  by  the  kind  interven 
tion  of  Mr.  Locker-Lampson,  better  known  to 
the  literary  world  as  Frederick  Locker,  arrange 
ments  were  made  for  my  daughter  and  myself  to 
visit  him.  I  considered  it  a  very  great  favor, 
for  Lord  Tennyson  has  a  poet's  fondness  for  the 
tranquillity  of  seclusion,  which  many  curious 
explorers  of  society  fail  to  remember.  Lady 
Tennyson  is  an  invalid,  and  though  nothing 
could  be  more  gracious  than  her  reception  of  us 
both,  I  fear  it  may  have  cost  her  an  effort  which 
she  would  not  allow  to  betray  itself.  Mr.  Hal- 
lam  Tennyson  and  his  wife,  both  of  most  pleas 
ing  presence  and  manners,  did  everything  to 
make  our  stay  agreeable.  I  saw  the  poet  to  the 
best  advantage,  under  his  own  trees  and  walking 
over  his  own  domain.  He  took  delight  in  pointing 
out  to  me  the  finest  and  the  rarest  of  his  trees, 
—  and  there  were  many  beauties  among  them. 
I  recalled  my  morning's  visit  to  Whittier  at  Oak 
Knoll,  in  Danvers,  a  little  more  than  a  year  ago, 
when  he  led  me  to  one  of  his  favorites,  an  aspir 
ing  evergreen  which  shot  up  like  a  flame.  I 
thought  of  the  graceful  American  elms  in  front  of 


VISIT  TO  TENNYSON.  105 

Longfellow's  house  and  the  sturdy  English  elms 
that  stand  in  front  of  Lowell's.  In  this  garden 
of  England,  the  Isle  of  Wight,  where  every 
thing  grows  with  such  a  lavish  extravagance  of 
greenness  that  it  seems  as  if  it  must  bankrupt 
the  soil  before  autumn,  I  felt  as  if  weary  eyes 
and  overtasked  brains  might  reach  their  happiest 
haven  of  rest.  We  all  remember  Shenstone's 
epigram  on  the  pane  of  a  tavern  window.  If  we 
find  our  "  warmest  welcome  at  an  inn,"  we  find 
our  most  soothing  companionship  in  the  trees 
among  which  we  have  lived,  some  of  which  we 
may  ourselves  have  planted.  We  lean  against 
them,  and  they  never  betray  our  trust ;  they 
shield  us  from  the  sun  and  from  the  rain  ;  their 
spring  welcome  is  a  new  birth,  which  never  loses 
its  freshness ;  they  lay  their  beautiful  robes  at 
our  feet  in  autumn  ;  in  winter  they  "  stand  and 
wait,"  emblems  of  patience  and  of  truth,  for 
they  hide  nothing,  not  even  the  little  leaf-buds 
which  hint  to  us  of  hope,  the  last  element  in 
their  triple  symbolism. 

This  digression,  suggested  by  the  remem 
brance  of  the  poet  under  his  trees,  breaks  my 
narrative,  but  gives  me  the  opportunity  of  pay- 


106     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

ing  a  debt  of  gratitude.  For  I  have  owned 
many  beautiful  trees,  and  loved  many  more  out 
side  of  my  own  leafy  harem.  Those  who  write 
verses  have  no  special  claim  to  be  lovers  of 
trees,  but  so  far  as  one  is  of  the  poetical  tem 
perament  he  is  likely  to  be  a  tree-lover.  Poets 
have,  as  a  rule,  more  than  the  average  nervous 
sensibility  and  irritability.  Trees  have  no 
nerves.  They  live  and  die  without  suffering, 
without  self-questioning  or  self-reproach.  They 
have  the  divine  gift  of  silence.  They  cannot 
obtrude  upon  the  solitary  moments  when  one  is 
to  himself  the  most  agreeable  of  companions. 
The  whole  vegetable  world,  even  "  the  meanest 
flower  that  blows,"  is  lovely  to  contemplate. 
What  if  creation  had  paused  there,  and  you  or 
I  had  been  called  upon  to  decide  whether  self- 
conscious  life  should  be  added  in  the  form  of  the 
existing  animal  creation,  and  the  hitherto  peace 
ful  universe  should  come  under  the  rule  of 
Nature  as  we  now  know  her, 

"  red  in  tooth  and  claw  "  ? 

Are  we  not  glad  that  the  responsibility  of  the 
decision  did  not  rest  on  us  ? 

I  am  sorry  that  I  did  not  ask  Tennyson  to 


VISIT  TO  TENNYSON.  107 

read  or  repeat  to  me  some  lines  of  his  own. 
Hardly  any  one  perfectly  understands  a  poem 
but  the  poet  himself.  One  naturally  loves  his 
own  poem  as  no  one  else  can.  It  fits  the  mental 
mould  in  which  it  was  cast,  and  it  will  not 
exactly  fit  any  other.  For  this  reason  I  had 
rather  listen  to  a  poet  reading  his  own  verses 
than  hear  the  best  elocutionist  that  ever  spouted 
recite  them.  He  may  not  have  a  good  voice  or 
enunciation,  but  he  puts  his  heart  and  his  inter 
penetrative  intelligence  into  every  line,  word, 
and  syllable.  I  should  have  liked  to  hear  Ten 
nyson  read  such  lines  as 

"  Laborious  orient  ivory,  sphere  in  sphere ;  " 

and  in  spite  of  my  good  friend  Matthew  Ar 
nold's  in  terrorem,  I  should  have  liked  to  hear 
Macaulay  read, 

"  And  Aulus  the  Dictator 

Stroked  Auster's  raven  mane," 

and  other  good  mouthable  lines,  from  the  "  Lays 
of  Ancient  Rome."  Not  less  should  I  like  to 
hear  Mr.  Arnold  himself  read  the  passage  be 
ginning,  — 

"  In  his  cool  hall  with  haggard  eyes 
The  Roman  noble  lay." 


108     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

The  next  day  Mrs.  Hallam  Tennyson  took 

A in  her  pony  cart  to  see  Alum  Bay,  The 

Needles,  and  other  objects  of  interest,  while  I 
wandered  over  the  grounds  with  Tennyson. 
After  lunch  his  carriage  called  for  us,  and  we 
were  driven  across  the  island,  through  beautiful 
scenery,  to  Ventnor,  where  we  took  the  train  to 
Ryde,  and  there  the  steamer  to  Portsmouth,  from 
which  two  hours  and  a  half  of  travel  carried 
us  to  London. 

My  first  visit  to  Cambridge  was  at  the  invita 
tion  of  Mr.  Gosse,  who  asked  me  to  spend  Sun 
day,  the  13th  of  June,  with  him.  The  rooms  in 
Neville  Court,  Trinity  College,  occupied  by  Sir 
William  Yernon  Harcourt  when  lecturing  at 
Cambridge,  were  placed  at  my  disposal.  The 
room  I  slept  in  was  imposing  with  the  ensigns 
armorial  of  the  Harcourts  and  others  which 
ornamented  its  walls.  I  had  great  delight  in 
walking  through  the  quadrangles,  along  the 
banks  of  the  Cam,  and  beneath  the  beautiful 
trees  which  border  it.  Mr.  Gosse  says  that  I 
stopped  in  the  second  court  of  Clare,  and  looked 
around  and  smiled  as  if  I  were  bestowing  my 


CAMBRIDGE.  109 

benediction.  He  was  mistaken  :  I  smiled  as  if 
I  were  receiving  a  benediction  from  my  dear  old 
grandmother ;  for  Cambridge  in  New  England 
is  my  mother  town,  and  Harvard  University  in 
Cambridge  is  my  Alma  Mater.  She  is  the 
daughter  of  Cambridge  in  Old  England,  and  my 
relationship  is  thus  made  clear. 

Mr.  Gosse  introduced  me  to  many  of  the 
younger  and  some  of  the  older  men  of  the  uni 
versity.  Among  my  visits  was  one  never  to  be 
renewed  and  never  to  be  forgotten.  It  was  to 
the  Master  of  Trinity,  the  Reverend  William 
Hep  worth  Thompson.  I  hardly  expected  to 
have  the  privilege  of  meeting  this  very  distin 
guished  and  greatly  beloved  personage,  famous 
not  alone  for  scholarship,  or  as  the  successor  of 
Dr.  Whewell  in  his  high  office,  but  also  as  hav 
ing  said  some  of  the  wittiest  things  which  we 
have  heard  since  Voltaire's  pour  encourager  les 
out  res.  I  saw  him  in  his  chamber,  a  feeble  old 
man,  but  noble  to  look  upon  in  all  "  the  monu 
mental  pomp  of  age."  He  came  very  near  be 
longing  to  the  little  group  I  have  mentioned  as 
my  coevals,  but  was  a  year  after  us.  Gentle, 
dignified,  kindly  in  his  address  as  if  I  had  been 


110     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

his  schoolmate,  he  left  a  very  charming  impres 
sion.  He  gave  me  several  mementoes  of  my 
visit,  among  them  a  beautiful  engraving  of  Sir 
Isaac  Newton,  representing  him  as  one  of  the 
handsomest  of  men.  Dr.  Thompson  looked  as 
if  he  could  not  be  very  long  for  this  world,  but 
his  death,  a  few  weeks  after  my  visit,  was  a 
painful  surprise  to  me.  I  had  been  just  in  time 
to  see  "  the  last  of  the  great  men "  at  Cam 
bridge,  as  my  correspondent  calls  him,  and  I 
was  very  grateful  that  I  could  store  this  memory 
among  the  hoarded  treasures  I  have  been  laying 
by  for  such  possible  extra  stretch  of  time  as  may 
be  allowed  me. 

My  second  visit  to  Cambridge  will  be  spoken 
of  in  due  season. 

While  I  was  visiting  Mr.  Gosse  at  Cambridge, 

A was  not  idle.  On  Saturday  she  went  to 

Lambeth,  where  she  had  the  pleasure  and  honor 
of  shaking  hands  with  the  Archbishop  of  Can 
terbury  in  his  study,  and  of  looking  about  the 
palace  with  Mrs.  Benson.  On  Sunday  she  went 
to  the  Abbey,  and  heard  "  a  broad  and  liberal 
sermon  "  from  Archdeacon  Farrar.  Our  young 
lady-secretary  stayed  and  dined  with  her,  and 


VISIT  TO  DRURY  LANE   THEATRE.     Ill 

after  dinner  sang  to  her.     "  A  peaceful,  happy 

Sunday,"  A says  in  her  diary,  —  not  less 

peaceful,  I  suspect,  for  my  being  away,  as  my 
callers  must  have  got  many  a  "  not  at  'ome  " 
from  young  Robert  of  the  multitudinous  buttons. 
On  Monday,  the  14th  of  June,  after  getting 
ready  for  our  projected  excursions,  we  had  an 
appointment  which  promised  us  a  great  deal 
of  pleasure.  Mr.  Augustus  Harris,  the  enter 
prising  and  celebrated  manager  of  Drury  Lane 
Theatre,  had  sent  us  an  invitation  to  occupy  a 
box,  having  eight  seats,  at  the  representation  of 
"  Carmen."  We  invited  the  Priestleys  and 
our  Boston  friends,  the  Shimminses,  to  take 
seats  with  us.  The  chief  singer  in  the  opera  was 
Marie  Roze,  who  looked  well  and  sang  well,  and 
the  evening  went  off  very  happily.  After  the 
performance  we  were  invited  by  Mr.  Harris  to 
a  supper  of  some  thirty  persons,  where  we  were 
the  special  guests.  The  manager  toasted  me, 
and  I  said  something,  —  I  trust  appropriate  ; 
but  just  what  I  said  is  as  irrecoverable  as  the 
orations  of  Demosthenes  on  the  sea-shore,  or  the 
sermons  of  St.  Francis  to  the  beasts  and  birds. 
Of  all  the  attentions  I  received  in  England, 


112     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

this  was,  perhaps,  the  least  to  be  anticipated  or 
dreamed  of.  To  be  feted  and  toasted  and  to 
make  a  speech  in  Drury  Lane  Theatre  would 
not  have  entered  into  my  flightiest  conceptions, 
if  I  had  made  out  a  programme  beforehand.  It 
is  a  singularly  gratifying  recollection.  Drury 
Lane  Theatre  is  so  full  of  associations  with 
literature,  with  the  great  actors  and  actresses  of 
the  past,  with  the  famous  beauties  who  have 
stood  behind  the  footlights  and  the  splendid 
audiences  that  have  sat  before  them,  that  it  is 
an  admirable  nucleus  for  remembrances  to  clus 
ter  around.  It  was  but  a  vague  spot  in  memory 
before,  but  now  it  is  a  bright  centre  for  other 
images  of  the  past.  That  one  evening  seems  to 
make  me  the  possessor  of  all  its  traditions  from 
the  time  when  it  rose  from  its  ashes,  when  By 
ron's  poem  was  written  and  recited,  and  when 
the  brothers  Smith  gave  us  the  "  Address  with 
out  a  Phoenix,"  and  all  those  exquisite  parodies 
which  make  us  feel  towards  their  originals  some 
what  as  our  dearly  remembered  Tom  Appleton 
did  when  he  said,  in  praise  of  some  real  green 
turtle  soup,  that  it  was  almost  as  good  as  mock. 
With  much  regret  we  gave  up  an  invitation 


CAMBRIDGE.  113 

we  had  accepted  to  go  to  Durdans  to  dine  with 
Lord  Kosebery.  We  must  have  felt  very  tired 
indeed  to  make  so  great  a  sacrifice,  but  we  had 
to  be  up  until  one  o'clock  getting  ready  for  the 
next  day's  journey  ;  writing,  packing,  and  at 
tending  to  what  we  left  behind  us  as  well  as 
what  was  in  prospect. 

On  the  morning  of  Wednesday,  June  16th, 
Dr.  Donald  Macalister  called  to  attend  us  on 
our  second  visit  to  Cambridge,  where  we  were 
to  be  the  guests  of  his  cousin,  Alexander  Mac 
alister,  Professor  of  Anatomy,  who,  with  Mrs. 
Macalister,  received  us  most  cordially.  There 
was  a  large  luncheon-party  at  their  house,  to 
which  we  sat  down  in  our  travelling  dresses.  In 
the  evening  they  had  a  dinner-party,  at  which 
were  present,  among  others,  Professor  Stokes, 
President  of  the  Royal  Society,  and  Professor 
Wright.  We  had  not  heard  much  talk  of  politi 
cal  matters  at  the  dinner-tables  where  we  had 

been  guests,  but  A sat  near  a  lady  who  was 

very  earnest  in  advocating  the  Irish  side  of  the 
great  impending  question. 

The  17th  of  June  is  memorable  in  the  annals 


114     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

of  my  country.  On  that  day  of  the  year  1775 
the  battle  of  Bunker's  Hill  was  fought  on  the 
height  I  see  from  the  window  of  my  library, 
where  I  am  now  writing.  The  monument  raised 
in  memory  of  our  defeat,  which  was  in  truth  a 
victory,  is  almost  as  much  a  part  of  the  furniture 
of  the  room  as  its  chairs  and  tables ;  outside, 
as  they  are  inside,  furniture.  But  the  17th  of 
June,  1886,  is  memorable  to  me  above  all  the 
other  anniversaries  of  that  day  I  have  known. 
For  on  that  day  I  received  from  the  ancient 
University  of  Cambridge,  England,  the  degree 
of  Doctor  of  Letters,  "  Doctor  Litt.,"  in  its  ab 
breviated  academic  form.  The  honor  was  an 
unexpected  one ;  that  is,  until  a  short  time  be 
fore  it  was  conferred. 

Invested  with  the  academic  gown  and  cap,  I 
repaired  in  due  form  at  the  appointed  hour  to 
the  Senate  Chamber.  Every  seat  was  filled, 
and  among  the  audience  were  youthful  faces  in 
large  numbers,  looking  as  if  they  were  ready  for 
any  kind  of  outbreak  of  enthusiasm  or  hilarity. 

The  first  degree  conferred  was  that  of  LL.  D., 
on  Sir  W.  A.  White,  G.  C.  M.,  G.  C.  B.,  to 
whose  long  list  of  appended  initials  it  seemed 


CAMBRIDGE.  115 

like  throwing  a  perfume  on  the  violet  to  add 
three  more  letters. 

When  I  was  called  up  to  receive  my  honorary 
title,  the  young  voices  were  true  to  the  promise 
of  the  young  faces.  There  was  a  great  noise, 
not  hostile  nor  unpleasant  in  its  character,  in 
answer  to  which  I  could  hardly  help  smiling  my 
acknowledgments.  In  presenting  me  for  my  de 
gree  the  Public  Orator  made  a  Latin  speech, 
from  which  I  venture  to  give  a  short  extract, 
which  I  would  not  do  for  the  world  if  it  were 
not  disguised  by  being  hidden  in  the  mask  of 
a  dead  language.  But  there  will  be  here  and 
there  a  Latin  scholar  who  will  be  pleased  with 
the  way  in  which  the  speaker  turned  a  compli 
ment  to  the  candidate  before  him,  with  a  refer 
ence  to  one  of  his  poems  and  to  some  of  his 
prose  works. 

"  Juvat  nuper  audivisse  eum  cujus  carmen 
prope  primitm  '  Folium  ultimum  '  nominatum 
est,  folia  adhuc  plura  e  scriniis  suis  esse  prola- 
turum.  Novimus  quanto  lepore  descripserit 
colloquia  ilia  antemeridiana,  symposia  ilia  so- 
bria  et  severa,  sed  eadem  f estiva  et  faceta,  in 
quibus  totiens  mutata  persona,  modo  poeta, 


116     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

modo  professor,  modo  princeps  et  arbiter,  lo- 
quendi,  inter  convivas  suos  regnat." 

I  had  no  sooner  got  through  listening  to  the 
speech  and  receiving  my  formal  sentence  as 
Doctor  of  Letters  than  the  young  voices  broke 
out  in  fresh  clamor.  There  were  cries  of  "  A 
speech !  a  speech !  "  mingled  with  the  title  of  a 
favorite  poem  by  John  Howard  Payne,  having 
a  certain  amount  of  coincidence  with  the  sound 
of  my  name.  The  play  upon  the  word  was  not 
absolutely  a  novelty  to  my  ear,  but  it  was  good- 
iiatured,  and  I  smiled  again,  and  perhaps  made 
a  faint  inclination,  as  much  as  to  say,  "  I  hear 
you,  young  gentlemen,  but  I  do  not  forget  that 
I  am  standing  on  my  dignity,  especially  now 
since  a  new  degree  has  added  a  moral  cubit  to 
my  stature."  Still  the  cries  went  on,  and  at 
last  I  saw  nothing  else  to  do  than  to  edge  back 
among  the  silk  gowns,  and  so  lose  myself  and 
be  lost  to  the  clamorous  crowd  in  the  mass  of 
dignitaries.  It  was  not  indifference  to  the 
warmth  of  my  welcome,  but  a  feeling  that  I  had 
no  claim  to  address  the  audience  because  some  of 
its  younger  members  were  too  demonstrative.  I 
have  not  forgotten  my  very  cordial  reception, 


CAMBRIDGE.  117 

which  made  me  feel  almost  as  much  at  home 
in  the  old  Cambridge  as  in  the  new,  where  I 
was  born  and  took  my  degrees,  academic,  profes 
sional,  and  honorary. 

The  university  town  left  a  very  deep  impres 
sion  upon  my  mind,  in  which  a  few  grand  ob 
jects  predominate  over  the  rest,  all  being  of  a 
delightful  character.  I  was  fortunate  enough  to 
see  the  gathering  of  the  boats,  which  was  the 
last  scene  in  their  annual  procession.  The 
show  was  altogether  lovely.  The  pretty  river, 
about  as  wide  as  the  Housatonic,  I  should 
judge,  as  that  slender  stream  winds  through 
"  Canoe  Meadow,"  my  old  Pittsfield  residence, 
the  gaily  dressed  people  who  crowded  the 
banks,  the  flower-crowned  boats,  with  the  gal 
lant  young  oarsmen  who  handled  them  so  skil 
fully,  made  a  picture  not  often  equalled.  The 
walks,  the  bridges,  the  quadrangles,  the  historic 
college  buildings,  all  conspired  to  make  the 
place  a  delight  and  a  fascination.  The  library 
of  Trinity  College,  with  its  rows  of  busts  by 
Roubiliac  and  AVoolner,  is  a  truly  noble  hall. 
But  beyond,  above  all  the  rest,  the  remembrance 
of  King's  College  Chapel,  with  its  audacious 


118     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

and  richly  wrought  roof  and  its  wide  and  lofty 
windows,  glowing  with  old  devices  in  colors 
which  are  ever  fresh,  as  if  just  from  the  furnace, 
holds  the  first  place  in  my  gallery  of  Cambridge 
recollections. 

I  cannot  do  justice  to  the  hospitalities  which 
were  bestowed  upon  us  in  Cambridge.  Profes 
sor  and  Mrs.  Macalister,  aided  by  Dr.  Donald 
Macalister,  did  all  that  thoughtful  hosts  could 
do  to  make  us  feel  at  home.  In  the  after 
noon  the  ladies  took  tea  at  Mr.  Oscar  Brown 
ing's.  In  the  evening  we  went  to  a  large  dinner 
at  the  invitation  of  the  Vice-Chancellor.  Many 
little  points  which  I  should  not  have  thought  of 

are  mentioned  in  A 's  diary.  I  take  the 

following  extract  from  it,  toning  down  its  viva 
city  more  nearly  to  my  own  standard :  — 

"Twenty  were  there.  The  Master  of  St. 
John's  took  me  in,  and  the  Vice-Chancellor  was 
on  the  other  side.  .  .  .  The  Vice-Chancellor 
rose  and  returned  thanks  after  the  meats  and 
before  the  sweets,  as  usual.  I  have  now  got 
used  to  this  proceeding,  which  strikes  me  as  ex 
traordinary.  Everywhere  here  in  Cambridge, 
and  the  same  in  Oxford,  I  believe,  they  say 


CAMBRIDGE.  119 

grace  and  give  thanks.  A  gilded  ewer  and  flat 
basin  were  passed,  with  water  in  the  basin  to 
wash  with,  and  we  all  took  our  turn  at  the  bath  ! 
Next  to  this  came  the  course  with  the  finger- 
bowls !  .  .  .  Why  two  baths?" 

On  Friday,  the  18th,  I  went  to  a  breakfast  at 
the  Combination  Room,  at  which  about  fifty 
gentlemen  were  present,  Dr.  Sandys  taking  the 
chair.  After  the  more  serious  business  of  the 
morning's  repast  was  over,  Dr.  Macalister,  at 
the  call  of  the  chairman,  arose,  and  proposed 
my  welfare  in  a  very  complimentary  way.  I  of 
course  had  to  respond,  and  I  did  so  in  the  words 
which  came  of  their  own  accord  to  my  lips. 
After  my  unpremeditated  answer,  which  was 
kindly  received,  a  young  gentleman  of  the  uni 
versity,  Mr.  Heitland,  read  a  short  poem,  of 
which  the  following  is  the  title :  — 

LINES  OF  GREETING    TO  DR.    OLIVER  WENDELL 
HOLMES. 

AT   BREAKFAST   IN  COMBINATION  ROOM,    ST.    JOHN'S  COLLEGE, 
CAMBRIDGE,    ENGLAND. 

I  wish  I  dared  quote  more  than  the  last  two 
verses  of  these  lines,  which  seemed  to  me,  not 
unused  to  giving  and  receiving  complimentary 


120     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

tributes,  singularly  happy,  and  were  so  consid 
ered  by  all  who  heard  them.  I  think  I  may 
venture  to  give  the  two  verses  referred  to :  — 

"  By  all  sweet  memory  of  the  saints  and  sages 

Who  wrought  among  us  in  the  days  of  yore  ; 
By  youths  who,  turning  now  life's  early  pages, 
Ripen  to  match  the  worthies  gone  before  : 

"  On  us,  O  son  of  England's  greatest  daughter, 

A  kindly  word  from  heart  and  tongue  bestow  ; 
Then  chase  the  sunsets  o'er  the  western  water, 
And  bear  our  blessing  with  you  as  you  go." 

I  need  not  say  that  I  left  the  English  Cam 
bridge  with  a  heart  full  of  all  grateful  and 
kindly  emotions. 

I  must  not  forget  that  I  found  at  Cambridge, 
very  pleasantly  established  and  successfully  prac 
tising  his  profession,  a  former  student  in  the 
dental  department  of  our  Harvard  Medical 
School,  Dr.  George  Cunningham,  who  used  to 
attend  my  lectures  on  anatomy.  In  the  garden 
behind  the  quaint  old  house  in  which  he  lives 
is  a  large  medlar-tree,  —  the  first  I  remember 
seeing. 

On  this  same  day  we  bade  good-by  to  Cam 
bridge,  and  took  the  two  o'clock  train  to  Oxford, 


OXFORD.  121 

where  we  arrived  at  half  past  five.  At  this  first 
visit  we  were  to  be  the  guests  of  Professor  Max 
Miiller,  at  his  fine  residence  in  Norham  Gar 
dens.  We  met  there,  at  dinner,  Mr.  Plerkomer, 
whom  we  have  recently  had  with  us  in  Boston, 
and  one  or  two  others.  In  the  evening  we  had 
music ;  the  professor  playing  on  the  piano,  his 
two  daughters,  Mrs.  Conybeare  and  her  unmar 
ried  sister,  singing,  and  a  young  lady  playing  the 
violin.  It  was  a  very  lovely  family  picture  ;  a 
pretty  house,  surrounded  by  attractive  scenery  ; 
scholarship,  refinement,  simple  elegance,  giving 
distinction  to  a  home  which  to  us  seemed  a  pat 
tern  of  all  we  could  wish  to  see  beneath  an  Eng 
lish  roof.  It  all  comes  back  to  me  very  sweetly, 
but  very  tenderly  and  sadly,  for  the  voice  of  the 
elder  of  the  two  sisters  who  sang  to  us  is  heard 
no  more  on  earth,  and  a  deep  shadow  has  fallen 
over  the  household  we  found  so  bright  and 
cheerful. 

Everything  was  done  to  make  me  enjoy  my 
visit  to  Oxford,  but  I  was  suffering  from  a 
severe  cold,  and  was  paying  the  penalty  of  too 
much  occupation  and  excitement.  I  missed  a 
great  deal  in  consequence,  and  carried  away  a 


122     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

less  distinct  recollection  of  this  magnificent  seat 
of  learning  than  of  the  sister  university. 

If  one  wishes  to  know  the  magic  of  names, 
let  him  visit  the  places  made  memorable  by  the 
lives  of  the  illustrious  men  of  the  past  in  the 
Old  World.  As  a  boy  I  used  to  read  the  po 
etry  of  Pope,  of  Goldsmith,  and  of  Johnson. 
How  could  I  look  at  the  Bodleian  Library,  or 
wander  beneath  its  roof,  without  recalling  the 
lines  from  "  The  Vanity  of  Human  Wishes  "  ? 

"  When  first  the  college  rolls  receive  his  name, 
The  young  enthusiast  quits  his  ease  for  fame ; 
Resistless  burns  the  fever  of  renown, 
Caught  from  the  strong  contagion  of  the  gown : 
O'er  Bodley's  dome  his  future  labors  spread, 
And  Bacon's  mansion  trembles  o'er  his  head." 

The  last  line  refers  to  Roger  Bacon.  "  There 
is  a  tradition  that  the  study  of  Friar  Bacon, 
built  on  an  arch  over  the  bridge,  will  fall  when 
a  man  greater  than  Bacon  shall  pass  under  it. 
To  prevent  so  shocking  an  accident,  it  was 
pulled  down  many  years  since."  We  shall  meet 
with  a  similar  legend  in  another  university  city. 
Many  persons  have  been  shy  of  these  localities, 
who  were  in  no  danger  whatever  of  meeting  the 
fate  threatened  by  the  prediction. 


OXFORD.  123 

We  passed  through  the  Bodleian  Library, 
only  glancing  at  a  few  of  its  choicest  treasures, 
among  which  the  exquisitely  illuminated  missals 
were  especially  tempting  objects  of  study.  It 
was  almost  like  a  mockery  to  see  them  opened 
and  closed,  without  having  the  time  to  study 
their  wonderful  miniature  paintings.  A  walk 
through  the  grounds  of  Magdalen  College,  un 
der  the  guidance  of  the  president  of  that  col 
lege,  showed  us  some  of  the  fine  trees  for  which 
I  was  always  looking.  One  of  these,  a  wych- 
elm  (Scotch  elm  of  some  books),  was  so  large 
that  I  insisted  on  having  it  measured.  A  string 
was  procured  and  carefully  carried  round  the 
trunk,  above  the  spread  of  the  roots  and  below 
that  of  the  branches,  so  as  to  give  the  smallest 
circumference.  I  was  curious  to  know  how  the 
size  of  the  trunk  of  this  tree  would  compare 
with  that  of  the  trunks  of  some  of  our  largest 
New  England  elms.  I  have  measured  a  good 
many  of  these.  About  sixteen  feet  is  the  mea 
surement  of  a  large  elm,  like  that  on  Boston 
Common,  which  all  middle-aged  people  remem 
ber.  From  twenty-two  to  twenty-three  feet  is 
the  ordinary  maximum  of  the  very  largest  trees. 


124     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

I  never  found  but  one  exceed  it :  that  was  the 
great  Springfield  elm,  which  looked  as  if  it  might 
have  been  formed  by  the  coalescence  from  the 
earliest  period  of  growth,  of  two  young  trees. 
When  I  measured  this  in  1837,  it  was  twenty- 
four  feet  eight  inches  in  circumference  at  five 
feet  from  the  ground ;  growing  larger  above  and 
below.  I  remembered  this  tree  well,  as  we 
measured  the  string  which  was  to  tell  the  size  of 
its  English  rival.  As  we  came  near  the  end  of 
the  string,  I  felt  as  I  did  when  I  was  looking 
at  the  last  dash  of  Ormonde  and  The  Bard  at 
Epsom. — Twenty  feet,  and  a  long  piece  of 
string  left.  —  Twenty  -  one.  —  Twenty  -  two.  — 
Twenty-three.  —  An  extra  heartbeat  or  two. — 
Twenty  -  four !  —  Twenty  -  five  and  six  inches 
over ! !  —  The  Springfield  elm  may  have  grown 
a  foot  or  more  since  I  measured  it,  fifty  years 
ago,  but  the  tree  at  Magdalen  stands  ahead  of 
all  my  old  measurements.  Many  of  the  fine  old 
trees,  this  in  particular,  may  have  been  known 
in  their  younger  days  to  Addison,  whose  favor 
ite  walk  is  still  pointed  out  to  the  visitor. 

I  would  not  try  to  compare  the  two  university 
towns,  as  one  might  who  had  to  choose  between 


OXFORD.  125 

them.  They  have  a  noble  rivalry,  each  honor 
ing  the  other,  and  it  would  take  a  great  deal  of 
weighing  one  point  of  superiority  against  an 
other  to  call  either  of  them  the  first,  except  in 
its  claim  to  antiquity. 

After  a  garden-party  in  the  afternoon,  a  plea 
sant  evening  at  home,  when  the  professor  played 
and  his  daughter  Beatrice  sang,  and  a  garden- 
party  the  next  day,  I  found  myself  in  somewhat 
better  condition,  and  ready  for  the  next  move. 

At  noon  on  the  23d  of  June  we  left  for  Edin 
burgh,  stopping  over  night  at  York,  where  we 
found  close  by  the  station  an  excellent  hotel, 
and  where  the  next  morning  we  got  one  of  the 
best  breakfasts  we  had  in  our  whole  travelling 
experience.  At  York  we  wandered  to  and 
through  a  flower-show,  and  did  the  cathedral, 
as  people  do  all  the  sights  they  see  under  the 
lead  of  a  paid  exhibitor,  who  goes  through  his 
lesson  like  a  sleepy  old  professor.  I  missed  see 
ing  the  slab  with  the  inscription  mixerrimus. 
There  may  be  other  stones  bearing  this  sad  su 
perlative,  but  there  is  a  story  connected  with 
this  one,  which  sounds  as  if  it  might  be  true. 

In  the  year  1834,  I  spent  several  weeks   in 


126      OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

Edinburgh.  I  was  fascinated  by  the  singular 
beauties  of  that  "  romantic  town,"  which  Scott 
called  his  own,  and  which  holds  his  memory, 
with  that  of  Burns,  as  a  most  precious  part  of 
its  inheritance.  The  castle  with  the  precipitous 
rocky  wall  out  of  which  it  grows,  the  deep  ra 
vines  with  their  bridges,  pleasant  Calton  Hill 
and  memorable  Holyrood  Palace,  the  new  town 
and  the  old  town  with  their  strange  contrasts, 
and  Arthur's  Seat  overlooking  all,  —  these  va 
ried  and  enchanting  objects  account  for  the 
fondness  with  which  all  who  have  once  seen 
Edinburgh  will  always  regard  it. 

We  were  the  guests  of  Professor  Alexander 
Crum  Brown,  a  near  relative  of  the  late  beloved 
and  admired  Dr.  John  Brown.  Professor  and 
Mrs.  Crum  Brown  did  everything  to  make  our 
visit  a  pleasant  one.  We  met  at  their  house 
many  of  the  best  known  and  most  distinguished 
people  of  Scotland.  The  son  of  Dr.  John  Brown 
dined  with  us  on  the  day  of  our  arrival,  and 
also  a  friend  of  the  family,  Mr.  Barclay,  to 
whom  we  made  a  visit  on  the  Sunday  following. 
Among  the  visits  I  paid,  none  was  more  gratify 
ing  to  me  than  one  which  I  made  to  Dr.  John 


EDINBURGH.  127 

Brown's  sister.  No  man  could  leave  a  sweeter 
memory  than  the  author  of  "  Rab  and  his 
Friends,"  of  "  Pet  Marjorie,"  and  other  writ 
ings,  all  full  of  the  same  loving,  human  spirit. 
I  have  often  exchanged  letters  with  him,  and  I 
thought  how  much  it  would  have  added  to  the 
enjoyment  of  my  visit  if  I  could  have  taken  his 
warm  hand  and  listened  to  his  friendly  voice. 
I  brought  home  with  me  a  precious  little  manu 
script,  written  expressly  for  me  by  one  who  had 
known  Dr.  John  Brown  from  the  days  of  her 
girlhood,  in  which  his  character  appears  in  the 
same  lovable  and  loving  light  as  that  which 
shines  in  every  page  he  himself  has  written. 

On  Friday,  the  25th,  I  went  to  the  hall  of  the 
university,  where  I  was  to  receive  the  degree  of 
LL.  D.  The  ceremony  was  not  unlike  that  at 
Cambridge,  but  had  one  peculiar  feature:  the 
separate  special  investment  of  the  candidate 
with  the  hood,  which  Johnson  defines  as  "an 
ornamental  fold  which  hangs  down  the  back  of 
a  graduate."  There  were  great  numbers  of  stu 
dents  present,  and  they  showed  the  same  exu 
berance  of  spirits  as  that  which  had  forced  me 
to  withdraw  from  the  urgent  calls  at  Cambridge. 


128     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

The  cries,  if  possible,  were  still  louder  and  more 
persistent ;  they  must  have  a  speech  and  they 
would  have  a  speech,  and  what  could  I  do  about 
it  ?  I  saw  but  one  way  of  pacifying  a  crowd  as 
noisy  and  long-breathed  as  that  which  for  about 
the  space  of  two  hours  cried  out,  "  Great  is 
Diana  of  the  Ephesians  !  "  So  I  stepped  to  the 
front  and  made  a  brief  speech,  in  which,  of 
course,  I  spoke  of  the  "  perfervidum  ingenium 
Scotorum"  A  speech  without  that  would  have 
been  like  that  "  Address  without  a  Phoenix " 
before  referred  to.  My  few  remarks  were  well 
received,  and  quieted  the  shouting  Ephesians  of 
the  warm-brained  and  warm-hearted  northern 
university.  It  gave  me  great  pleasure  to  meet 
my  friend  Mr.  Underwood,  now  American  con 
sul  in  Glasgow,  where  he  has  made  himself 
highly  esteemed  and  respected. 

In  my  previous  visit  to  Edinburgh  in  1834,  I 
was  fond  of  rambling  along  under  Salisbury 
Crags,  and  climbing  the  sides  of  Arthur's  Seat. 
I  had  neither  time  nor  impulse  for  such  walks 
during  this  visit,  but  in  driving  out  to  dine  at 
Nidrie,  the  fine  old  place  now  lived  in  by  Mr. 
Barclay  and  his  daughters,  we  passed  under  the 


EDINBURGH.  129 

crags  and  by  the  side  of  the  great  hill.  I  had 
never  heard,  or  if  I  had  I  had  forgotten,  the 
name  and  the  story  of  "  Samson's  Ribs."  These 
are  the  columnar  masses  of  rock  which  form  the 
face  of  Salisbury  Crags.  There  is  a  legend  that 
one  day  one  of  these  pillars  will  fall  and  crush 
the  greatest  man  that  ever  passes  under  them. 
It  is  said  that  a  certain  professor  was  always 
very  shy  of  "  Samson's  Ribs,"  for  fear  the 
prophecy  might  be  fulfilled  in  his  person.  We 
were  most  hospitably  received  at  Mr.  Barclay's, 
and  the  presence  of  his  accomplished  and  pleas 
ing  daughters  made  the  visit  memorable  to  both 
of  us.  There  was  one  picture  on  their  walls, 
that  of  a  lady,  by  Sir  Joshua,  which  both  of  us 
found  very  captivating.  This  is  what  is  often 
happening  in  the  visits  we  make.  Some  paint 
ing  by  a  master  looks  down  upon  us  from  its  old 
canvas,  and  leaves  a  lasting  copy  of  itself,  to  be 
be  stored  in  memory's  picture  gallery.  These 
surprises  are  not  so  likely  to  happen  in  the  New 
World  as  in  the  Old. 

It  seemed  cruel  to  be  forced  to  tear  ourselves 
away  from  Edinburgh,  where  so  much  had  been 
done  to  make  us  happy,  where  so  much  was  left 


130      OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

to  see  and  enjoy,  but  we  were  due  in  Oxford, 
where  I  was  to  receive  the  last  of  the  three  de 
grees  with  which  I  was  honored  in  Great  Bri 
tain. 

Our  visit  to  Scotland  gave  us  a  mere  glimpse 
of  the  land  and  its  people,  but  I  have  a  very 
vivid  recollection  of  both  as  I  saw  them  on  my 
first  visit,  when  I  made  an  excursion  into  the 
Highlands  to  Stirling  and  to  Glasgow,  where  I 
went  to  church,  and  wondered  over  the  uncouth 
ancient  psalmody,  which  I  believe  is  still  re 
tained  in  use  to  this  day.  I  was  seasoned  to  that 
kind  of  poetry  in  my  early  days  by  the  verses 
of  Tate  and  Brady,  which  I  used  to  hear  "  en- 
tuned  in  the  nose  ful  swetely,"  accompanied  by 
vigorous  rasping  of  a  huge  bass-viol.  No  won 
der  that  Scotland  welcomed  the  song  of  Burns  ! 

On  our  second  visit  to  Oxford  we  were  to  be 
the  guests  of  the  Vice-Chancellor  of  the  univer 
sity,  Dr.  Jowett.  This  famous  scholar  and  ad 
ministrator  lives  in  a  very  pleasant  establish 
ment,  presided  over  by  the  Muses,  but  without 
the  aid  of  a  Vice-Chancelloress.  The  hospitality 
of  this  classic  mansion  is  well  known,  and  we 


OXFORD.  131 

added  a  second  pleasant  chapter  to  our  previous 
experience  under  the  roof  of  Professor  Max 
Miiller.  There  was  a  little  company  there 
before  us,  including  the  Lord  Chancellor  and 
Lady  Herschel,  Lady  Camilla  "Wallop,  Mr. 
Browning,  and  Mr.  Lowell.  We  were  too  late, 
in  consequence  of  the  bad  arrangement  of  the 
trains,  and  had  to  dine  by  ourselves,  as  the 
whole  party  had  gone  out  to  a  dinner,  to  which 
we  should  have  accompanied  them  had  we  not 
been  delayed.  We  sat  up  long  enough  to  see 
them  on  their  return,  and  were  glad  to  get  to 
bed,  after  our  day's  journey  from  Edinburgh  to 
Oxford. 

At  eleven  o'clock  on  the  following  day  we 
who  were  to  receive  degrees  met  at  Balliol  Col 
lege,  whence  we  proceeded  in  solemn  procession 
to  the  Sheldonian  Theatre.  Among  my  com 
panions  on  this  occasion  were  Mr.  John  Bright, 
the  Lord  Chancellor  Herschel,  and  Mr.  Aldis 
Wright.  I  have  an  instantaneous  photograph, 
which  was  sent  me,  of  this  procession.  I  can 
identify  Mr.  Bright  and  myself,  but  hardly  any 
of  the  others,  though  many  better  acquainted 
with  their  faces  would  no  doubt  recognize  them. 


132      OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

There  is  a  certain  sensation  in  finding  one's  self 
invested  with  the  academic  gown,  conspicuous  by 
its  red  facings,  and  the  cap  with  its  square  top 
and  depending  tassel,  which  is  not  without  its 
accompanying  satisfaction.  One  can  walk  the 
streets  of  any  of  the  university  towns  in  his  aca 
demic  robes  without  being  jeered  at,  as  I  am 
afraid  he  would  be  in  some  of  our  own  thor 
oughfares.  There  is  a  noticeable  complacency 
in  the  members  of  our  Phi  Beta  Kappa  society 
when  they  get  the  pink  and  blue  ribbons  in  their 
buttonholes,  on  the  day  of  annual  meeting.  How 
much  more  when  the  scholar  is  wrapped  in  those 
flowing  folds,  with  their  flaming  borders,  and 
feels  the  dignity  of  the  distinction  of  which  they 
are  the  symbol !  I  do  not  know  how  Mr.  John 
Bright  felt,  but  I  cannot  avoid  the  impression 
that  some  in  the  ranks  which  moved  from  Bal- 
liol  to  the  Sheldonian  felt  as  if  Solomon  in  all 
his  glory  was  not  arrayed  like  the  candidates 
for  the  degree  of  D.  C.  L. 

After  my  experience  at  Cambridge  and  Edin 
burgh,  I  might  have  felt  some  apprehension 
about  my  reception  at  Oxford.  I  had  always 
supposed  the  audience  assembled  there  at  the 


OXFORD.  133 

conferring  of  degrees  was  a  more  demonstrative 
one  than  that  at  any  other  of  the  universities, 
and  I  did  not  wish  to  be  forced  into  a  retreat  by 
calls  for  a  speech,  as  I  was  at  Cambridge,  nor 
to  repeat  my  somewhat  irregular  proceeding  of 
addressing  the  audience,  as  at  Edinburgh.  But 
when  I  found  that  Mr.  John  Bright  was  to  be 
one  of  the  recipients  of  the  degree  I  felt  safe, 
for  if  he  made  a  speech  I  should  be  justified  in 
saying  a  few  words,  if  I  thought  it  best ;  and  if 
he,  one  of  the  most  eloquent  men  in  England, 
remained  silent,  I  surely  need  not  make  myself 
heard  on  the  occasion.  It  was  a  great  triumph 
for  him,  a  liberal  leader,  to  receive  the  testimo 
nial  of  a  degree  from  the  old  conservative  uni 
versity.  To  myself  it  was  a  graceful  and  pleas 
ing  compliment ;  to  him  it  was  a  grave  and 
significant  tribute.  As  we  marched  through  the 
crowd  on  our  way  from  Balliol,  the  people 
standing  around  recognized  Mr.  Bright,  and 
cheered  him  vociferously. 

The  exercises  in  the  Sheldonian  Theatre  were 
more  complex  and  lasted  longer  than  those  at 
the  other  two  universities.  The  candidate 
stepped  forward  and  listened  to  one  sentence, 


134     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

then  made  another  move  forward  and  listened 
to  other  words,  and  at  last  was  welcomed  to  all 
the  privileges  conferred  by  the  degree  of  Doctor 
of  Common  Law,  which  was  announced  as  being 
bestowed  upon  him.  Mr.  Bright,  of  course,  was 
received  with  immense  enthusiasm.  I  had  every 
reason  to  be  gratified  with  my  own  reception. 
The  only  "  chaffing  "  I  heard  was  the  question 
from  one  of  the  galleries,  "  Did  he  come  in  the 
One  Hoss  Shay  ? "  —  at  which  there  was  a 
hearty  laugh,  joined  in  as  heartily  by  myself. 
A  part  of  the  entertainment  at  this  ceremony 
consisted  in  the  listening  to  the  reading  of  short 
extracts  from  the  prize  essays,  some  or  all  of 
them  in  the  dead  languages,  which  could  not 
have  been  particularly  intelligible  to  a  large 
part  of  the  audience.  During  these  readings 
there  were  frequent  interpellations,  as  the 
French  call  such  interruptions,  something  like 
these  :  "  That  will  do,  sir !  "  or  "  You  had  better 
stop,  sir!" — always,  I  noticed,  with  the  sir  at 
the  end  of  the  remark.  With  us  it  would  have 
been  "  Dry  up !  "  or  "  Hold  on  !  "  At  last  came 
forward  the  young  poet  of  the  occasion,  who 
read  an  elaborate  poem,  "  Savonarola,"  which 


OXFORD.  135 

was  listened  to  in  most  respectful  silence,  and 
loudly  applauded  at  its  close,  as  I  thought,  de 
servedly.  Prince  and  Princess  Christian  were 
among  the  audience.  They  were  staying  with 
Professor  and  Mrs.  Max  Miiller,  whose  hospital 
ities  I  hope  they  enjoyed  as  much  as  we  did. 

One  or  two  short  extracts  from  A 's  diary 

will  enliven  my  record  :  "  The  Princess  had  a 
huge  bouquet,  and  going  down  the  aisle  had  to 
bow  both  ways  at  once,  it  seemed  to  me :  but 
then  she  has  the  Guelph  spine  and  neck !  Of 
course  it  is  necessary  that  royalty  should  have 
more  elasticity  in  the  frame  than  we  poor  ordi 
nary  mortals.  After  all  this  we  started  for  a 
luncheon  at  All  Souls,  but  had  to  wait  (impa 
tiently)  for  H.  R.  H.  to  rest  herself,  while  our 
resting  was  done  standing." 

It  is  a  long  while  since  I  read  Madame  d'Ar- 
blay's  Recollections,  but  if  I  remember  right, 
standing  while  royalty  rests  its  bones  is  one  of 
the  drawbacks  to  a  maid  of  honor's  felicity. 

"  Finally,  at  near  three,  we  went  into  a  great 
luncheon  of  some  fifty.  There  were  different 
tables,  and  I  sat  at  the  one  with  royalty.  The 
Provost  of  Oriel  took  me  in,  and  Mr.  Browning 


136     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

was  on  my  other  side.  Finally,  we  went  home 
to  rest,  but  the  others  started  out  again  to  go  to 
a  garden-party,  but  that  was  beyond  us."  After 
all  this  came  a  dinner-party  of  twenty  at  the 
Vice-Chancellor's,  and  after  that  a  reception, 
where  among  others  we  met  Lord  and  Lady 
Coleridge,  the  lady  resplendent  in  jewels.  Even 
after  London,  this  could  hardly  be  called  a  day 
of  rest. 

The  Chinese  have  a  punishment  which  con 
sists  simply  in  keeping  the  subject  of  it  awake, 
by  the  constant  teasing  of  a  succession  of  indi 
viduals  employed  for  the  purpose.  The  best  of 
our  social  pleasures,  if  carried  beyond  the  natu 
ral  power  of  physical  and  mental  endurance,  be 
gin  to  approach  the  character  of  such  a  penance. 
After  this  we  got  a  little  rest ;  did  some  mild 
sight-seeing,  heard  some  good  music,  called  on 
the  Max  Miillers,  and  bade  them  good-by  with 
the  warmest  feeling  to  all  the  members  of  a 
household  which  it  was  a  privilege  to  enter. 
There  only  remained  the  parting  from  our  kind 
entertainer,  the  Vice  -  Chancellor,  who  added 
another  to  the  list  of  places  which  in  England 
and  Scotland  were  made  dear  to  us  by  hospital- 


OXFORD.  137 

ity,  and  are  remembered  as  true  homes  to  us 
while  we  were  under  their  roofs. 

On  the  second  day  of  July  we  left  the  Vice- 
Chancellor's,  and  went  to  the  Randolph  Hotel 
to  meet  our  friends,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Willett,  from 
Brighton,  with  whom  we  had  an  appointment  of 
long  standing.  With  them  we  left  Oxford,  to 
enter  on  the  next  stage  of  our  pilgrimage. 


IV. 

IT  had  been  the  intention  of  Mr.  Willett  to 
go  with  us  to  visit  Mr.  Ruskin,  with  whom  he 
is  in  the  most  friendly  relations.  But  a  letter 
from  Mr.  Ruskin's  sister  spoke  of  his  illness  as 
being  too  serious  for  him  to  see  company,  and 
we  reluctantly  gave  up  this  part  of  our  plan. 

My  first  wish  was  to  revisit  Stratford-on- 
Avon,  and  as  our  travelling  host  was  guided  in 
everything  by  our  inclinations,  we  took  the  cars 
for  Stratford,  where  we  arrived  at  five  o'clock  in 
the  afternoon.  It  had  been  arranged  before 
hand  that  we  should  be  the  guests  of  Mr.  Charles 
E.  Flower,  one  of  the  chief  citizens  of  Stratford, 
who  welcomed  us  to  his  beautiful  mansion  in 
the  most  cordial  way,  and  made  us  once  more  at 
home  under  an  English  roof. 

I  well  remembered  my  visit  to  Stratford  in 
1834.  The  condition  of  the  old  house  in  which 
Shakespeare  was  born  was  very  different  from 
that  in  which  we  see  it  to-day.  A  series  of  pho- 


STRATFORD-ON-A  VON.  139 

tographs  taken  in  different  years  shows  its  grad 
ual  transformation  since  the  time  when  the  old 
projecting  angular  sign-board  told  all  who  ap 
proached  "  The  immortal  Shakespeare  was  born 
in  this  House."  How  near  the  old  house  came 
to  sharing  the  fortunes  of  Jumbo  under  the  man 
agement  of  our  enterprising  countryman,  Mr. 
Barnum,  I  am  not  sure  ;  but  that  he  would  have 
"  traded  "  for  it,  if  the  proprietors  had  been  will 
ing,  I  do  not  doubt,  any  more  than  I  doubt  that 
he  would  make  an  offer  for  the  Tower  of  Lon 
don,  if  that  venerable  structure  were  in  the  mar 
ket.  The  house  in  which  Shakespeare  was  born 
is  the  Santa  Casa  of  England.  What  with  my 
recollections  and  the  photographs  with  which  I 
was  familiarly  acquainted,  it  had  nothing  very 
new  for  me.  Its  outside  had  undergone  great 
changes,  but  its  bare  interior  was  little  altered. 

My  previous  visit  was  a  hurried  one,  —  I  took 
but  a  glimpse,  and  then  went  on  my  way.  Now, 
for  nearly  a  week  I  was  a  resident  of  Stratford- 
on-Avon.  How  shall  I  describe  the  perfectly 
ideal  beauty  of  the  new  home  in  which  I  found 
myself !  It  is  a  fine  house,  surrounded  by  de 
lightful  grounds,  which  skirt  the  banks  of  the 


140     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

Avon  for  a  considerable  distance,  and  come  close 
up  to  the  enclosure  of  the  Church  of  the  Holy 
Trinity,  beneath  the  floor  of  which  lie  the  mortal 
remains  of  Shakespeare.  The  Avon  is  one  of 
those  narrow  English  rivers  in  which  half  a 
dozen  boats  might  lie  side  by  side,  but  hardly 
wide  enough  for  a  race  between  two  rowing 
abreast  of  each  other.  Just  here  the  river  is 
comparatively  broad  and  quiet,  there  being  a 
dam  a  little  lower  down  the  stream.  The  wa 
ters  were  a  perfect  mirror,  as  I  saw  them  on  one 
of  the  still  days  we  had  at  Stratford.  I  do  not 
remember  ever  before  seeing  cows  walking  with 
their  legs  in  the  air,  as  I  saw  them  reflected  in 
the  Avon.  Along  the  banks  the  young  people 
were  straying.  I  wondered  if  the  youthful 
swains  quoted  Shakespeare  to  their  lady-loves. 
Could  they  help  recalling  Komeo  and  Juliet? 
It  is  quite  impossible  to  think  of  any  human 
being  growing  up  in  this  place  which  claims 
Shakespeare  as  its  child,  about  the  streets  of 
which  he  ran  as  a  boy,  on  the  waters  of  which 
he  must  have  often  floated,  without  having  his 
image  ever  present.  Is  it  so  ?  There  are  some 
boys,  from  eight  to  ten  or  a  dozen  years  old,  fish- 


STRA  TFORD-ON-A  VON.  141 

ing  in  the  Avon,  close  by  the  grounds  of  "  Avon- 
bank,"  the  place  at  which  we  are  staying.  I 
call  to  the  little  group.  I  say,  "Boys,  who 
was  this  man  Shakespeare,  people  talk  so  much 
about  ?  "  Boys  turn  round  and  look  up  with  a 
plentiful  lack  of  intelligence  in  their  counte 
nances.  "  Don't  you  know  who  he  was  nor  what 
he  was  ?  "  Boys  look  at  each  other,  but  confess 
ignorance.  —  Let  us  try  the  universal  stimulant 
of  human  faculties.  "Here  are  some  pennies 
for  the  boy  that  will  tell  me  what  that  Mr. 
Shakespeare  was."  The  biggest  boy  finds  his 
tongue  at  last.  "  He  was  a  writer,  —  he  wrote 
plays."  That  was  as  much  as  I  could  get  out  of 
the  youngling.  I  remember  meeting  some  boys 
under  the  monument  upon  Bunker  Hill,  and 
testing  their  knowledge  as  I  did  that  of  the 
Stratford  boys.  "  What  is  this  great  stone  pil 
lar  here  for  ?  "  I  asked.  "  Battle  fought  here,  — 
great  battle."  "Who  fought?"  "Americans 
and  British."  (I  never  hear  the  expression 
Britishers.)  "  Who  was  the  general  on  the 
American  side  ?  "  "  Don'  know,  —  General 
Washington  or  somebody."  —  What  is  an  old 
battle,  though  it  may  have  settled  the  destinies 


142     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

of  a  nation,  to  the  game  of  base-ball  between 
the  Boston  and  Chicago  Nines  which  is  to  come 
off  to-morrow,  or  to  the  game  of  marbles  which 
Tom  and  Dick  are  just  going  to  play  together 
under  the  shadow  of  the  great  obelisk  which 
commemorates  the  conflict? 

The  room  more  especially  assigned  to  me 
looked  out,  at  a  distance  of  not  more  than  a 
stone's-throw,  on  the  northern  aspect  of  the 
church  where  Shakespeare  lies  buried.  Work 
men  were  busy  on  the  roof  of  the  transept.  I 
could  not  conveniently  climb  up  to  have  a  talk 
with  the  roofers,  but  I  have  my  doubts  whether 
they  were  thinking  all  the  time  of  the  dust  over 
which  they  were  working.  How  small  a  matter 
literature  is  to  the  great  seething,  toiling,  strug 
gling,  love-making,  bread-winning,  child-rearing, 
death-awaiting  men  and  women  who  fill  this 
huge,  palpitating  world  of  ours !  It  would  be 
worth  while  to  pass  a  week  or  a  month  among 
the  plain,  average  people  of  Stratford.  What 
is  the  relative  importance  in  human  well-being 
of  the  emendations  of  the  text  of  Hamlet  and 
the  patching  of  the  old  trousers  and  the  darning 
of  the  old  stockings  which  task  the  needles  of 


STRA  T FORD-ON- A  VON.  143 

the  hard-working  households  that  fight  the  battle 
of  life  in  these  narrow  streets  and  alleys?  I 
ask  the  question  ;  the  reader  may  answer  it. 

Our  host,  Mr.  Flower,  is  more  deeply  inter 
ested,  perhaps,  than  any  other  individual  in  the 
"  Shakespeare  Memorial  "  buildings  which  have 
been  erected  on  the  banks  of  the  Avon,  a  short 
distance  above  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Trinity. 
Under  Mr.  Flower's  guidance  we  got  into  one  of 
his  boats,  and  were  rowed  up  the  stream  to  the 
Memorial  edifice.  There  is  a  theatre,  in  a  round 
tower  which  has  borrowed  some  traits  from  the 
octagon  "  Globe  "  theatre  of  Shakespeare's  day ; 
a  Shakespeare  library  and  portrait  gallery  are 
forming  ;  and  in  due  time  these  buildings,  of 
stately  dimensions  and  built  solidly  of  brick, 
will  constitute  a  Shakespearean  centre  which  will 
attract  to  itself  many  mementoes  now  scattered 
about  in  various  parts  of  the  country. 

On  the  4th  of  July  we  remembered  our  native 
land  with  all  the  affectionate  pride  of  temporary 
exiles,  and  did  not  forget  to  drink  at  lunch  to 
the  prosperity  and  continued  happiness  of  the 
United  States  of  America.  In  the  afternoon  we 
took  to  the  boat  again,  and  were  rowed  up  the 


144     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

river  to  the  residence  of  Mr.  Edgar  Flower, 
where  we  found  another  characteristic  English 
family,  with  its  nine  children,  one  of  whom  was 
the  typical  English  boy,  most  pleasing  and  at 
tractive  in  look,  voice,  and  manner. 

I  attempt  no  description  of  the  church,  the 
birthplace,  or  the  other  constantly  visited  and 
often  described  localities.  The  noble  bridge, 
built  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VII.  by  Sir  Hugh 
Clopton,  and  afterwards  widened,  excited  my  ad 
miration.  It  was  a  much  finer  piece  of  work 
than  the  one  built  long  afterwards.  I  have 
hardly  seen  anything  which  gave  me  a  more 
striking  proof  of  the  thoroughness  of  the  old 
English  workmen.  They  built  not  for  an  age, 
but  for  all  time,  and  the  New  Zealander  will 
have  to  wait  a  long  while  before  he  will  find  in 
any  one  of  the  older  bridges  that  broken  arch 
from  which  he  is  to  survey  the  ruins  of  London. 

It  is  very  pleasant  to  pick  up  a  new  epithet  to 
apply  to  the  poet  upon  whose  genius  our  lan 
guage  has  nearly  exhausted  itself.  It  delights 
me  to  speak  of  him  in  the  words  which  I  have 
just  found  in  a  memoir  not  yet  a  century  old,  as 
"  the  Warwickshire  bard,"  "  the  inestimable 
Shakespeare." 


STRA  TFORD-ON-A  VON.  145 

Ever  since  Miss  Bacon  made  her  insane  at 
tempt  to  unearth  what  is  left  of  Shakespeare's 
bodily  frame,  the  thought  of  doing  reverently 
and  openly  what  she  would  have  done  by  stealth 
has  been  entertained  by  psychologists,  artists, 
and  others  who  would  like  to  know  what  were 
his  cranial  developments,  and  to  judge  from  the 
conformation  of  the  skull  and  face  which  of  the 
various  portraits  is  probably  the  true  one. 
There  is  little  doubt  that  but  for  the  curse  in 
voked  upon  the  person  who  should  disturb  his 
bones,  in  the  well-known  lines  on  the  slab  which 
covers  him,  he  would  rest,  like  Napoleon,  like 
Washington,  in  a  fitting  receptacle  of  marble  or 
porphyry.  In  the  transfer  of  his  remains  the 
curiosity  of  men  of  science  and.  artists  would 
have  been  gratified,  if  decay  had  spared  the  more 
durable  portions  of  his  material  structure.  It 
was  probably  not  against  such  a  transfer  that 
the  lines  were  written,  —  whoever  was  their 
author,  —  but  in  the  fear  that  they  would  be 
carried  to  the  charnel-house. 

"  In  this  charnel-house  was  contained  a  vast 
collection  of  human  bones.  How  long  they  had 
been  deposited  there  is  not  easily  to  be  deter- 


146     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

mined ;  but  it  is  evident,  from  the  immense 
quantity  contained  in  the  vault,  it  could  have 
been  used  for  no  other  purpose  for  many  ages." 
"  It  is  probable  that  from  an  early  contemplation 
of  this  dreary  spot  Shakespeare  imbibed  that 
horror  of  a  violation  of  sepulture  which  is  obser 
vable  in  many  parts  of  his  writings." 

The  body  of  Raphael  was  disinterred  in  1833 
to  settle  a  question  of  identity  of  the  remains, 
and  placed  in  a  new  coffin  of  lead,  which  was 
deposited  in  a  marble  sarcophagus  presented  by 
the  Pope.  The  sarcophagus,  with  its  contents, 
was  replaced  in  the  same  spot  from  which  the 
remains  had  been  taken.  But  for  the  inscription 
such  a  transfer  of  the  bones  of  Shakespeare 
would  have  been  proposed,  and  possibly  carried 
out.  Kings  and  emperors  have  frequently  been 
treated  in  this  way  after  death,  and  the  proposi 
tion  is  no  more  an  indignity  than  was  that  of 
the  exhumation  of  the  remains  of  Napoleon,  or 
of  Andre,  or  of  the  author  of  "Home,  Sweet 
Home."  But  sentiment,  a  tender  regard  for  the 
supposed  wishes  of  the  dead  poet,  and  a  natural 
dread  of  the  consequences  of  violating  a  dying 
wish,  coupled  with  the  execration  of  its  contem- 


STRA  TFORD-ON-A  VON.  147 

ner,  are  too  powerful  for  the  arguments  of  sci 
ence  and  the  pleadings  of  art.  If  Shakespeare's 
body  had  been  embalmed,  —  which  there  is  no 
reason  that  I  know  of  to  suppose,  —  the  desire 
to  compare  his  features  with  the  bust  and  the 
portraits  would  have  been  much  more  imperative. 
When  the  body  of  Charles  the  First  was  exam 
ined,  under  the  direction  of  Sir  Henry  Halford, 
in  the  presence  of  the  Regent,  afterwards  George 
the  Fourth,  the  face  would  have  been  recognized 
at  once  by  all  who  were  acquainted  with  Van 
dyke's  portrait  of  the  monarch,  if  the  lithograph 
which  comes  attached  to  Sir  Henry's  memoir  is 
an  accurate  representation  of  what  they  found. 
Even  the  bony  framework  of  the  face,  as  I  have 
had  occasion  to  know,  has  sometimes  a  striking 
likeness  to  what  it  was  when  clothed  in  its  nat 
ural  features.  As  between  the  first  engraved 
portrait  and  the  bust  in  the  church,  the  form  of 
the  bones  of  the  head  and  face  would  probably 
be  decisive.  But  the  world  can  afford  to  live 
without  solving  this  doubt,  and  leave  his  perish 
ing  vesture  of  decay  to  its  repose. 

After    seeing  the    Shakespeare    shrines,   we 
drove  over  to  Shottery,  and  visited   the   Anne 


148     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

Hathaway  cottage.  I  am  not  sure  whether  I 
ever  saw  it  before,  but  it  was  as  familiar  to  me 
as  if  I  had  lived  in  it.  The  old  lady  who  showed 
it  was  agreeably  communicative,  and  in  perfect 
keeping  with  the  place. 

A  delightful  excursion  of  ten  or  a  dozen  miles 
carried  our  party,  consisting  of  Mr.  and  Mrs. 

Flower,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Willett,  with  A and 

myself,  to  Compton  Wynyate,  a  most  interest 
ing  old  mansion,  belonging  to  the  Marquis  of 
Northampton,  who,  with  his  daughter-in-law, 
Lady  William  Compton,  welcomed  us  and 
showed  us  all  the  wonders  of  the  place.  It  was 
a  fine  morning,  but  hot  enough  for  one  of  our 
American  July  days.  The  drive  was  through 
English  rural  scenery ;  that  is  to  say,  it  was 
lovely.  The  old  house  is  a  great  curiosity.  It 
was  built  in  the  reign  of  Henry  the  Eighth,  and 
has  passed  through  many  vicissitudes.  The 
place,  as  well  as  the  edifice,  is  a  study  for  the 
antiquarian.  Remains  of  the  old  moat  which 
surrounded  it  are  still  distinguishable.  The 
twisted  and  variously  figured  chimneys  are  of 
singular  variety  and  exceptional  forms.  Comp 
ton  Wynyate  is  thought  to  get  its  name  from  the 


COMPTON  WYNYATE.  149 

vineyards  formerly  under  cultivation  on  the  hill 
sides,  which  show  the  signs  of  having  been  laid 
out  in  terraces.  The  great  hall,  with  its  gallery, 
and  its  hangings,  and  the  long  table  made  from 
the  trunk  of  a  single  tree,  carries  one  back  into 
the  past  centuries.  There  are  strange  nooks 
and  corners  and  passages  in  the  old  building, 
and  one  place,  a  queer  little  "  cubby-hole,"  has 
the  appearance  of  having  been  a  Roman  Catho 
lic  chapel.  I  asked  the  master  of  the  house, 
who  pointed  out  the  curiosities  of  the  place  most 
courteously,  about  the  ghosts  who  of  course  were 
tenants  in  common  with  the  living  proprietors. 
I  was  surprised  when  he  told  me  there  were 
none.  It  was  incredible,  for  here  was  every  ac 
commodation  for  a  spiritual  visitant.  I  should 
have  expected  at  least  one  haunted  chamber,  to 
say  nothing  of  blood-stains  that  could  never  be 
got  rid  of ;  but  there  were  no  legends  of  the  su 
pernatural  or  the  terrible. 

Refreshments  were  served  us,  among  which 
were  some  hot-house  peaches,  ethereally  delicate 
as  if  they  had  grown  in  the  Elysian  Fields  and' 
been  stolen  from  a  banquet  of  angels.  After 
this  we  went  out  on  the  lawn,  where,  at  Lady 


150     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

William  Compton's  request,  I  recited  one  or  two 
poems ;  the  only  time  I  did  such  a  thing  in  Eng 
land. 

It  seems  as  if  Compton  Wynyate  must  have 
been  written  about  in  some  novel  or  romance,  — 
perhaps  in  more  than  one  of  both.  It  is  the 
place  of  all  others  to  be  the  scene  of  a  romantic 
story.  It  lies  so  hidden  away  among  the  hills 
that  its  vulgar  name,  according  to  old  Cainden, 
was  "Compton  in  the  Hole."  I  am  not  sure 
that  it  was  the  scene  of  any  actual  conflict,  but 
it  narrowly  escaped  demolition  in  the  great  civil 
war,  and  in  1646  it  was  garrisoned  by  the  Par 
liament  army. 

On  the  afternoon  of  July  6th,  our  hosts  had  a 
large  garden-party.  If  nothing  is  more  trying 
than  one  of  these  out-of-door  meetings  on  a  cold, 
windy,  damp  day,  nothing  can  be  more  delight 
ful  than  such  a  social  gathering  if  the  place  and 
the  weather  are  just  what  we  could  wish  them. 
The  garden-party  of  this  afternoon  was  as  near 
perfection  as  such  a  meeting  could  well  be.  The 
day  was  bright  and  warm,  but  not  uncomforta 
bly  hot,  to  me,  at  least.  The  company  strolled 
about  the  grounds,  or  rested  on  the  piazzas, 
or  watched  the  birds  in  the  aviary,  or  studied 


STRATFORD-ON-A  VON.  151 

rudimentary  humanity  in  the  monkey,  or,  better 
still,  in  a  charming  baby,  for  the  first  time  on 
exhibition  since  she  made  the  acquaintance  of 
sunshine.  Every  one  could  dispose  of  himself 
or  herself  as  fancy  might  suggest.  I  broke 
away  at  one  time,  and  wandered  alone  by  the 
side  of  the  Avon,  under  the  shadow  of  the  tall 
trees  upon  its  bank.  The  whole  scene  was  as 
poetical,  as  inspiring,  as  any  that  I  remember. 
It  would  be  easy  to  write  verses  about  it,  but 
unwritten  poems  are  so  much  better ! 

One  reminiscence  of  that  afternoon  claims 
precedence  over  all  the  rest.  The  reader  must 
not  forget  that  I  have  been  a  medical  practi 
tioner,  and  for  thirty-five  years  a  professor  in  a 
medical  school.  Among  the  guests  whom  I  met 
in  the  grounds  was  a  gentleman  of  the  medical 
profession,  whose  name  I  had  often  heard,  and 
whom  I  was  very  glad  to  see  and  talk  with. 
This  was  Mr.  Lawson  Tait,  F.  R.  C.  S.,  M.  D., 
of  Birmingham.  Mr.,  or  more  properly  Dr., 
Tait  has  had  the  most  extraordinary  success  in  a 
class  of  cases  long  considered  beyond  the  reach 
of  surgery.  If  I  refer  to  it  as  a  scientific  hari 
kari,  not  for  the  taking  but  for  the  saving  of 


152     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

life,  I  shall  come  near  enough  to  its  description. 
This  operation  is  said  to  have  been  first  per 
formed  by  an  American  surgeon  in  Danville, 
Kentucky,  in  the  year  1809.  So  rash  and  dan 
gerous  did  it  seem  to  most  of  the  profession  that 
it  was  sometimes  spoken  of  as  if  to  attempt  it 
were  a  crime.  Gradually,  however,  by  improved 
methods,  and  especially  by  the  most  assiduous 
care  in  nursing  the  patient  after  the  operation, 
the  mortality  grew  less  and  less,  until  it  was 
recognized  as  a  legitimate  and  indeed  an  invalu 
able  addition  to  the  resources  of  surgery.  Mr. 
Lawson  Tait  has  had,  so  far  as  I  have  been  able 
to  learn,  the  most  wonderful  series  of  successful 
cases  on  record :  namely,  one  hundred  and 
thirty -nine  consecutive  operations  without  a  sin 
gle  death. 

As  I  sat  by  the  side  of  this  great  surgeon,  a 
question  suggested  itself  to  my  mind  which  I 
leave  the  reader  to  think  over.  Which  would 
give  the  most  satisfaction  to  a  thoroughly  hu 
mane  and  unselfish  being,  of  cultivated  intelli 
gence  and  lively  sensibilities  :  to  have  written  all 
the  plays  which  Shakespeare  has  left  as  an  in 
heritance  for  mankind,  or  to  have  snatched  from 


STRA  TFORD-ON-A  VON.  153 

the  jaws  of  death  more  than  a  hundred  fellow- 
creatures, —  almost  seven  scores  of  suffering 
women,  —  and  restored  them  to  sound  and  com 
fortable  existence  ?  It  would  be  curious  to  get 
the  answers  of  a  hundred  men  and  a  hundred 
women,  of  a  hundred  young  people  and  a  hun 
dred  old  ones,  of  a  hundred  scholars  and  a  hun 
dred  operatives.  My  own  specialty  is  asking 
questions,  not  answering  them,  and  I  trust  I 
shall  not  receive  a  peck  or  two  of  letters  inquir 
ing  of  me  how  I  should  choose  if  such  a  ques 
tion  were  asked  me.  It  may  prove  as  fertile  a 
source  of  dispute  as  "  The  Lady  or  the  Tiger." 

It  would  have  been  a  great  thing  to  pass  a 
single  night  close  to  the  church  where  Shake 
speare's  dust  lies  buried.  A  single  visit  by 
daylight  leaves  a  comparatively  slight  impres 
sion.  But  when,  after  a  night's  sleep,  one 
wakes  up  and  sees  the  spire  and  the  old  walls 
full  before  him,  that  impression  is  very  greatly 
deepened,  and  the  whole  scene  becomes  far 
more  a  reality.  Now  I  was  nearly  a  whole 
week  at  Stratford-on-Avon.  The  church,  its 
exterior,  its  interior,  the  birthplace,  the  river, 
had  time  to  make  themselves  permanent  images 


154     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

in  my  mind.  To  effect  this  requires  a  certain 
amount  of  exposure,  as  much  as  in  the  case  of 
a  photographic  negative. 

And  so  we  bade  good-by  to  Stratford-on- 
Avon  and  its  hospitalities,  with  grateful  remem 
brances  of  our  kind  entertainers  and  all  they 
did  for  our  comfort  and  enjoyment. 

Where  should  we  go  next  ?  Our  travelling 
host  proposed  Great  Malvern,  a  famous  water 
ing-place,  where  we  should  find  peace,  rest,  and 
good  accommodations.  So  there  we  went,  and 
soon  found  ourselves  installed  at  the  "  Foley 
Arms  "  hotel.  The  room  I  was  shown  to  looked 
out  upon  an  apothecary's  shop,  and  from  the 
window  of  that  shop  stared  out  upon  me  a  plas 
ter  bust  which  I  recognized  as  that  of  Samuel 
Hahnemann.  I  was  glad  to  change  to  another 
apartment,  but  it  may  be  a  comfort  to  some  of 
his  American  followers  to  know  that  traces  of 
homoeopathy,  —  or  what  still  continues  to  call 
itself  so,  —  survive  in  the  Old  World,  which 
we  have  understood  was  pretty  well  tired  of  it. 

We  spent  several  days  very  pleasantly  at 
Great  Malvern.  It  lies  at  the  foot  of  a  range 


GREAT  MALVERN.  155 

of  hills,  the  loftiest  of  which  is  over  a  thousand 

feet  in  height.     A and  I  thought  we  would 

go  to  the  top  of  one  of  these,  known  as  the 
Beacon.  We  hired  a  "four-wheeler,"  dragged 
by  a  much-enduring  horse  and  in  charge  of  a 
civil  young  man.  "We  turned  out  of  one  of  the 
streets  not  far  from  the  hotel,  and  found  our 
selves  facing  an  ascent  which  looked  like  what 
I  should  suppose  would  be  a  pretty  steep  tobog 
gan  slide.  We  both  drew  back.  "  Facilis 
ascensus,"  I  said  to  myself,  "sed  revocare 
gnuluni."  It  is  easy  enough  to  get  up  if  you 
are  dragged  up,  but  how  will  it  be  to  come 
down  such  a  declivity?  When  we  reached  it 
on  our  return,  the  semi-precipice  had  lost  all  its 
terrors.  We  had  seen  and  travelled  over  so 
much  worse  places  that  this  little  bit  of  slanting 
road  seemed  as  nothing.  The  road  which  wound 
up  to  the  summit  of  the  Beacon  was  narrow  and 
uneven.  It  ran  close  to  the  edge  of  the  steep 
hillside,  —  so  close  that  there  were  times  when 
every  one  of  our  forty  digits  curled  up  like  a 
bird's  claw.  If  we  went  over,  it  would  not  be  a 
fall  down  a  good  honest  precipice,  —  a  swish 
through  the  air  and  a  smash  at  the  bottom,  — 


156      OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

but  a  tumbling,  and  a  rolling  over  and  over,  and 
a  bouncing  and  bumping,  ever  accelerating,  until 
we  bounded  into  the  level  below,  all  ready  for 
the  coroner.  At  one  sudden  turn  of  the  road  the 
horse's  body  projected  so  far  over  its  edge  that 

A declared  if  the  beast  had  been  an  inch 

longer  he  would  have  toppled  over.  When  we 
got  close  to  the  summit  we  found  the  wind  blow 
ing  almost  a  gale.  A says  in  her  diary  that 

I  (meaning  her  honored  parent)  "  nearly  blew 
off  from  the  top  of  the  mountain."  It  is  true 
that  the  force  of  the  wind  was  something  fearful, 
and  seeing  that  two  young  men  near  me  were 
exposed  to  its  fury,  I  offered  an  arm  to  each  of 
them,  which  they  were  not  too  proud  to  accept ; 

A was  equally  attentive  to  another  young 

person ;  and  having  seen  as  much  of  the  prospect 
as  we  cared  to,  we  were  glad  to  get  back  to  our 
four-wheeler  and  our  hotel,  after  a  perilous  jour 
ney  almost  comparable  to  Mark  Twain's  ascent 
of  the  Kiffelberg. 

At  Great  Malvern  we  were  deliciously  idle. 
"We  walked  about  the  place,  rested  quietly, 
drove  into  the  neighboring  country,  and  made  a 
single  excursion,  —  to  Tewkesbury.  There  are 
few  places  better  worth  seeing  than  this  fine  old 


GREAT  MALVERN.-  TEWKESBURY.      157 

town,  full  of  historical  associations  and  monu 
mental  relics.  The  magnificent  old  abbey  church 
is  the  central  object  of  interest.  The  noble 
Norman  tower,  one  hundred  and  thirty-two  feet 
in  height,  was  once  surmounted  by  a  spire, 
which  fell  during  divine  service  on  Easter  Day 
of  the  year  1559.  The  arch  of  the  west  entrance 
is  sixteen  feet  high  and  thirty-four  feet  wide. 
The  fourteen  columns  of  the  nave  are  each  six 
feet  and  three  inches  in  diameter  and  thirty  feet 
in  height.  I  did  not  take  these  measurements 
from  the  fabric  itself,  but  from  the  guide-book, 
and  I  give  them  here  instead  of  saying  that  the 
columns  were  huge,  enormous,  colossal,  as  they 
did  most  assuredly  seem  to  me.  The  old  houses 
of  Tewkesbury  compare  well  with  the  finest  of 
those  in  Chester.  I  have  a  photograph  before 
me  of  one  of  them,  in  which  each  of  the  three 
upper  floors  overhangs  the  one  beneath  it,  and 
the  windows  in  the  pointed  gable  above  project 
over  those  of  the  fourth  floor. 

I  ought  to  have  visited  the  site  of  Holme 
Castle,  the  name  of  which  reminds  me  of  my 
own  origin.  "  The  meaning  of  the  Saxon  word 
4  Holme  '  is  a  meadow  surrounded  with  brooks, 


158      OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

and  here  not  only  did  the  castle  bear  the  name, 
but  the  meadow  is  described  as  the  '  Holme,  — 
where  the  castle  was.' "  The  final  s  in  the 
name  as  we  spell  it  is  a  frequent  addition  to  old 
English  names,  as  Camden  mentions,  giving  the 
name  Holmes  among  the  examples.  As  there 
is  no  castle  at  the  Holme  now,  I  need  not  pur 
sue  my  inquiries  any  further.  It  was  by  acci 
dent  that  I  stumbled  on  this  bit  of  archaeology, 
and  as  I  have  a  good  many  namesakes,  it  may 
perhaps  please  some  of  them  to  be  told  about  it. 
Few  of  us  hold  any  castles,  I  think,  in  these  days, 
except  those  chateaux  en  Espagne,  of  which  I 
doubt  not,  many  of  us  are  lords  and  masters. 

In  another  of  our  excursions  we  visited  a  ven 
erable  church,  where  our  attention  was  called  to 
a  particular  monument.  It  was  erected  to  the 
memory  of  one  of  the  best  of  husbands  by  his 
"  wretched  widow,"  who  records  upon  the  marble 
that  there  never  was  such  a  man  on  the  face  of 
the  earth  before,  and  never  will  be  again,  and 
that  there  never  was  anybody  so  miserable  as 
she,  —  no,  never,  never,  never !  These  are  not 
the  exact  words,  but  this  is  pretty  nearly  what 
she  declares.  The  story  is  that  she  married 
again  within  a  year. 


GREAT  MALVERN.  159 

From  my  window  at  the  Folcy  Arms  I  can 
see  the  tower  of  the  fine  old  abbey  church  of 
Malvern,  which  would  be  a  centre  of  pilgrim 
ages  if  it  were  in  our  country.  But  England  is 
full  of  such  monumental  structures,  into  the 
history  of  which  the  local  antiquarians  burrow, 
and  pass  their  peaceful  lives  in  studying  and 
writing  about  them  with  the  same  innocent  en 
thusiasm  that  White  of  Selborne  manifested  in 
studying  nature  as  his  village  showed  it  to  him. 

In  our  long  drives  we  have  seen  everywhere 
the  same  picturesque  old  cottages,  with  the 
pretty  gardens,  and  abundant  flowers,  and  noble 
trees,  more  frequently  elms  than  any  other. 
One  day  —  it  was  on  the  10th  of  July  —  we 
found  ourselves  driving  through  what  seemed  to 
be  a  gentleman's  estate,  an  ample  domain,  well 
wooded  and  well  kept.  On  inquiring  to  whom 
this  place  belonged,  I  was  told  that  the  owner 
was  Sir  Edmund  Lechmere.  The  name  had  a 
very  familiar  sound  to  my  ears.  Without  rising 
from  the  table  at  which  I  am  now  writing,  I 
have  only  to  turn  my  head,  and  in  full  view,  at 
the  distance  of  a  mile,  just  across  the  estuary  of 
the  Charles,  shining  in  the  morning  sun,  are  the 


160     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

roofs  and  spires  and  chimneys  of  East  Cam 
bridge,  always  known  in  my  younger  days  as 
Lechmere's  Point.  Judge  Richard  Lechmere 
was  one  of  our  old  Cambridge  Tories,  whose 
property  was  confiscated  at  the  time  of  the  Rev 
olution.  An  engraving  of  his  handsome  house, 
which  stands  next  to  the  Vassall  house,  long 
known  as  Washington's  headquarters,  and  since 
not  less  celebrated  as  the  residence  of  Longfel 
low,  is  before  me,  on  one  of  the  pages  of  the 
pleasing  little  volume,  "  The  Cambridge  of 
1776."  I  take  it  for  granted  that  our  Lech- 
meres  were  of  the  same  stock  as  the  owner  of 
this  property.  If  so,  he  probably  knows  all 
that  I  could  tell  him  about  his  colonial  relatives, 
who  were  very  grand  people,  belonging  to  a 
little  aristocratic  circle  of  friends  and  relatives 
who  were  faithful  to  their  king  and  their  church. 
The  Baroness  Riedesel,  wife  of  a  Hessian  officer 
who  had  been  captured,  was  for  a  while  resident 
in  this  house,  and  her  name,  scratched  on  a  win 
dow-pane,  was  long  shown  as  a  sight  for  eyes 
unused  to  titles  other  than  governor,  judge, 
colonel,  and  the  like.  I  was  tempted  to  present 
myself  at  Sir  Edmund's  door  as  one  who  knew 


BATH.  161 

something  about  the  Lechmeres  in  America,  but 
I  did  not  feel  sure  how  cordially  a  descendant 
of  the  rebels  who  drove  off  Richard  and  Mary 
Lechmere  would  be  received. 

From  Great  Malvern  we  went  to  Bath,  an 
other  place  where  we  could  rest  and  be  comfort 
able.  The  Grand  Pump-Room  Hotel  was  a 
stately  building,  and  the  bath-rooms  were  far 
beyond  anything  I  had  ever  seen  of  that  kind. 
The  remains  of  the  old  Roman  baths,  which  ap 
pear  to  have  been  very  extensive,  are  partially 
exposed.  "What  surprises  one  all  over  the  Old 
World  is  to  see  how  deeply  all  'the  old  civiliza 
tions  contrive  to  get  buried.  Everybody  seems 
to  have  lived  in  the  cellar.  It  is  hard  to  believe 
that  the  cellar  floor  was  once  the  sunlit  surface 
of  the  smiling  earth. 

I  looked  forward  to  seeing  Bath  with  a  curi 
ous  kind  of  interest.  I  once  knew  one  of  those 
dear  old  English  ladies  whom  one  finds  all  the 
world  over,  with  their  prim  little  ways,  and  their 
gilt  prayer-books,  and  lavender-scented  handker 
chiefs,  and  family  recollections.  She  gave  me 
the  idea  that  Bath,  a  city  where  the  great  peo 
ple  often  congregate,  was  more  especially  the 


162     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

paradise  of  decayed  gentlewomen.  There,  she 
told  me,  persons  with  very  narrow  incomes  — 
not  demi-fortunes,  but  demi-quart-de-fortunes  — 
could  find  everything  arranged  to  accommodate 
their  modest  incomes.  I  saw  the  evidence  of 
this  everywhere.  So  great  was  the  delight  I  had 
in  looking  in  at  the  shop- windows  of  the  long 
street  which  seemed  to  be  one  of  the  chief  tho 
roughfares  that,  after  exploring  it  in  its  full  ex 
tent  by  myself,  I  went  for  A ,  and  led  her 

clown  one  side  its  whole  length  and  up  the  other. 
In  these  shops  the  precious  old  dears  could  buy 
everything  they  wanted  in  the  most  minute 
quantities.  Such  tempting  heaps  of  lumps  of 
white  sugar,  only  twopence  !  Such  delectable 
cakes,  two  for  a  penny  !  Such  seductive  scraps 
of  meat,  which  would  make  a  breakfast  nourish 
ing  as  well  as  relishing,  possibly  even  what 
called  itself  a  dinner,  blushing  to  see  themselves 
labelled  threepence  or  fourpence  !  We  did  not 
know  whether  to  smile  or  to  drop  a  tear,  as 
we  contemplated  these  baits  hung  out  to  tempt 
the  coins  from  the  exiguous  purses  of  ancient 
maidens,  forlorn  widows,  withered  annuitants, 
stranded  humanity  in  every  stage  of  shipwrecked 


BATH.  163 

penury.  I  am  reminded  of  Thackeray's  "Jack 
Spiggot."  "  And  what  are  your  pursuits,  Jack  ? 
says  I.  '  Sold  out  when  the  governor  died. 
Mother  lives  at  Bath.  Go  down  there  once  a 
year  for  a  week.  Dreadful  slow.  Shilling 
whist.' '  Mrs.  Gaskell's  picture  of  "  Cranford  " 
is  said  to  have  been  drawn  from  a  village  in 
Cheshire,  but  Bath  must  have  a  great  deal  in 
common  with  its  "  elegant  economies."  Do  not 
make  the  mistake,  however,  of  supposing  that 
this  splendid  watering-place,  sometimes  spoken 
of  as  "the  handsomest  city  in  Britain,"  is  only 
a  city  of  refuge  for  people  that  have  seen  better 
days.  Lord  Macaulay  speaks  of  it  as  "that 
beautiful  city  which  charms  even  eyes  familiar 
with  the  masterpieces  of  Bramante  and  Palla- 
dio."  If  it  is  not  quite  so  conspicuous  as  a 
fashionable  resort  as  it  was  in  the  days  of  Beau 
Nash  or  of  Christopher  Anstey,  it  has  never  lost 
its  popularity.  Chesterfield  writes  in  1764, 
"  The  number  of  people  in  this  place  is  infinite," 
and  at  the  present  time  the  annual  influx  of  vis 
itors  is  said  to  vary  from  ten  to  fourteen  thou 
sand.  Many  of  its  public  buildings  are  fine, 
and  the  abbey  church,  dating  from  1499,  is  an 


164     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

object  of  much  curiosity,  especially  on  account 
of  the  sculptures  on  its  western  fasade.  These 
represent  two  ladders,  with  angels  going  up  and 
down  upon  them,  —  suggested  by  a  dream  of 
the  founder  of  the  church,  repeating  that  of 
Jacob. 

On  the  14th  of  July  we  left  Bath  for  Salis 
bury.  While  passing  Westbury,  one  of  our  fel 
low-passengers  exclaimed,  "  Look  out !  Look 
out!"  "What  is  it?"  "The  horse!  the 
horse  !  "  All  our  heads  turned  to  the  window, 
and  all  our  eyes  fastened  on  the  figure  of  a 
white  horse,  upon  a  hillside  some  miles  distant. 
This  was  not  the  white  horse  which  Mr. 
Thomas  Hughes  has  made  famous,  but  one  of 
much  less  archaic  aspect  and  more  questionable 
history.  A  little  book  which  we  bought  tells  us 
all  we  care  to  know  about  it.  "  It  is  formed  by 
excoriating  the  turf  over  the  steep  slope  of  the 
northern  escarpment  of  Salisbury  Plain."  It 
was  "  remodelled  "  in  1778,  and  "  restored  "  in 
1873  at  a  cost  of  bet  ween  sixty  and  seventy 
pounds.  It  is  said  that  a  smaller  and  ruder 
horse  stood  here  from  time  immemorial,  and  was 
made  to  commemorate  a  victory  of  Alfred  over 


SALISBURY.  165 

the  Danes.  However  that  may  be,  the  horse  we 
now  see  on  the  hillside  is  a  very  modern-looking 
and  well-shaped  animal,  and  is  of  the  following 
dimensions  :  length,  170  feet ;  height  from  high 
est  part  of  back,  128  feet ;  thickness  of  body, 
55  feet ;  length  of  head,  50  feet ;  eye,  6  by  8 
feet.  It  is  a  very  pretty  little  object  as  we  see 
it  in  the  distance. 

Salisbury  Cathedral  was  my  first  love  among 
all  the  wonderful  ecclesiastical  buildings  which  I 
saw  during  my  earlier  journey.  I  looked  for 
ward  to  seeing  it  again  with  great  anticipations 
of  pleasure,  which  were  more  than  realized. 

Our  travelling  host  had  taken  a  whole  house 
in  the  Close,  —  a  privileged  enclosure,  contain 
ing  the  cathedral,  the  bishop's  palace,  houses  of 
the  clergy,  and  a  limited  number  of  private  resi 
dences,  one  of  the  very  best  of  which  was  given 
over  entirely  into  the  hands  of  our  party  during 
our  visit.  The  house  was  about  as  near  the 
cathedral  as  Mr.  Flower's  house,  where  we 
stayed  at  Stratford-on-Avon,  was  to  the  Church 
of  the  Holy  Trinity.  It  was  very  completely 
furnished,  and  in  the  room  assigned  to  me  as 
my  library  I  found  books  in  various  languages, 


166     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

showing  that  the  residence  was  that  of  a  schol 
arly  person. 

If  one  had  to  name  the  apple  of  the  eye  of 
England,  I  think  he  would  be  likely  to  say  that 
Salisbury  Cathedral  was  as  near  as  he  could 
come  to  it,  and  that  the  white  of  the  eye  was 
Salisbury  Close.  The  cathedral  is  surrounded 
by  a  high  wall,  the  gates  of  which,  —  its  eyelids, 
—  are  closed  every  night  at  a  seasonable  hour, 
at  which  the  virtuous  inhabitants  are  expected 
to  be  in  their  safe  and  sacred  quarters.  Houses 
within  this  hallowed  precinct  naturally  bring  a 
higher  rent  than  those  of  the  unsanctified  and 
unprotected  region  outside  of  its  walls.  It  is  a 
realm  of  peace,  glorified  by  the  divine  edifice, 
which  lifts  the  least  imaginative  soul  upward 
to  the  heavens  its  spire  seems  trying  to  reach ; 
beautified  by  rows  of  noble  elms  which  stretch 
high  aloft,  as  if  in  emulation  of  the  spire;  be 
atified  by  holy  memories  of  the  good  and  great 
men  who  have  worn  their  lives  out  in  the  service 
of  the  church  of  which  it  is  one  of  the  noblest 
temples. 

For  a  whole  week  we  lived  under  the  shadow 
of  the  spire  of  the  great  cathedral.  Our  house 


SALISBURY.  167 

was  opposite  the  north  transept,  only  separated 
by  the  road  in  front  of  it  from  the  cathedral 
grounds.  Here,  as  at  Stratford,  I  learned  what 
it  was  to  awake  morning  after  morning  and  find 
that  I  was  not  dreaming,  but  there  in  the  truth- 
telling  daylight  the  object  of  my  admiration,  de 
votion,  almost  worship,  stood  before  me.  I  need 
not  here  say  anything  more  of  the  cathedral,  ex 
cept  that  its  perfect  exterior  is  hardly  equalled 
in  beauty  by  its  interior,  which  looks  somewhat 
bare  and  cold.  It  was  my  impression  that  there 
is  more  to  study  than  to  admire  in  the  interior, 
but  I  saw  the  cathedral  so  much  oftener  on  the 
outside  than  on  the  inside  that  I  may  not  have 
done  justice  to  the  latter  aspect  of  the  noble 
building. 

Nothing  could  be  more  restful  than  our  week 
at  Salisbury.  There  was  enough  in  the  old 
town  besides  the  cathedral  to  interest  us,  —  old 
buildings,  a  museum  full  of  curious  objects,  and 
the  old  town  itself.  When  I  was  there  the  first 
time,  I  remember  that  we  picked  up  a  guide 
book  in  which  we  found  a  verse  that  has  re 
mained  in  my  memory  ever  since.  It  is  an 
epitaph  on  a  native  of  Salisbury  who  died  in 
Venice. 


168      OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

"  Born  in  the  English  Venice,  thou  didst  dye 
Dear  Friend,  in  the  Italian  Salisbury." 

This  would  be  hard  to  understand  except  for  the 
explanation  which  the  local  antiquarians  give  us 
of  its  significance.  The  Wiltshire  Avon  flows 
by  or  through  the  town,  which  is  drained  by 
brooks  that  run  through  its  streets.  These, 
which  used  to  be  open,  are  now  covered  over, 
and  thus  the  epitaph  becomes  somewhat  puz 
zling,  as  there  is  nothing  to  remind  one  of 
Venice  in  walking  about  the  town. 

While  at  Salisbury  we  made  several  excur 
sions  :  to  Old  Sarum ;  to  Bemerton,  where  we 
saw  the  residence  of  holy  George  Herbert,  and 
visited  the  little  atom  of  a  church  in  which  he 
ministered ;  to  Clarendon  Park ;  to  Wilton,  the 
seat  of  the  Earl  of  Pembroke,  a  most  interesting 
place  for  itself  and  its  recollections ;  and  lastly 
to  Sfonehenge.  My  second  visit  to  the  great 
stones  after  so  long  an  interval  was  a  strange 
experience.  But  what  is  half  a  century  to  a 
place  like  Stonehenge  ?  Nothing  dwarfs  an  in 
dividual  life  like  one  of  these  massive,  almost 
unchanging  monuments  of  an  antiquity  which  re 
fuses  to  be  measured.  The  "  Shepherd  of  Salis- 


STONEHENGE.  169 

bury  Plain  "  was  represented  by  an  old  man, 
who  told  all  he  knew  and  a  good  deal  more 
about  the  great  stones,  and  sheared  a  living,  not 
from  sheep,  but  from  visitors,  in  the  shape  of 
shillings  and  sixpences.  I  saw  nothing  that 
wore  unwoven  wool  on  its  back  in  the  neighbor 
hood  of  the  monuments,  but  sheep  are  shown 
straggling  among  them  in  the  photographs. 

The  broken  circle  of  stones,  some  in  their 
original  position,  some  bending  over  like  old 
men,  some  lying  prostrate,  suggested  the 
thoughts  which  took  form  in  the  following 
verses.  They  were  read  at  the  annual  meeting, 
in  January,  of  the  class  which  graduated  at 
Harvard  College  in  the  year  1829.  Eight  of 
the  fifty-nine  men  who  graduated  sat  round  the 
small  table.  There  were  several  other  class 
mates  living,  but  infirmity,  distance,  and  other 
peremptory  reasons  kept  them  from  being  with 
us.  I  have  read  forty  poems  at  our  successive 
annual  meetings.  I  will  introduce  this  last  one 
by  quoting  a  stanza  from  the  poem  I  read  in 
1851 :  — 

As  one  by  one  is  falling 

Beneath  the  leaves  or  snows, 


170     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

Each  memory  still  recalling 
The  broken  ring  shall  close, 

Till  the  night  winds  softly  pass 
O'er  the  green  and  growing  grass, 

Where  it  waves  on  the  graves 
Of  the  "  Boys  of  'Twenty-nine." 


THE   BROKEN  CIRCLE. 

I  stood  on  Sarum's  treeless  plain, 

The  waste  that  careless  Nature  owns ; 

Lone  tenants  of  her  bleak  domain, 

Loomed  huge  and  gray  the  Druid  stones. 

Upheaved  in  many  a  billowy  mound 

The  sea-like,  naked  turf  arose, 
Where  wandering  flocks  went  nibbling  round 

The  mingled  graves  of  friends  and  foes. 

The  Briton,  Roman,  Saxon,  Dane, 
This  windy  desert  roamed  in  turn ; 

Unmoved  these  mighty  blocks  remain 
Whose  story  none  that  lives  may  learn. 

Erect,  half  buried,  slant  or  prone, 

These  awful  listeners,  blind  and  dumb, 

Hear  the  strange  tongues  of  tribes  unknown, 
As  wave  on  wave  they  go  and  come. 

Who  are  you,  giants,  whence  and  why  ?  " 
I  stand  and  ask  in  blank  amaze ; 


STONEUENGE.  171 

My  soul  accepts  their  mute  reply  : 
**  A  mystery,  as  are  you  that  gaze. 

"  A  silent  Orpheus  wrought  the  charm 

From  riven  rocks  their  spoils  to  bring ; 
A  nameless  Titan  lent  his  arm 
To  range  us  in  our  magic  ring. 

"  But  Time  with  still  and  stealthy  stride, 
That  climbs  and  treads  and  levels  all, 
That  bids  the  loosening  keystone  slide, 
And  topples  down  the  crumbling  wall,  — 

"Time,  that  unbuilds  the  quarried  past, 

Leans  on  these  wrecks  that  press  the  sod  ; 
They  slant,  they  stoop,  they  fall  at  last, 
And  strew  the  turf  their  priests  have  trod. 

"  No  more  our  altar's  wreath  of  smoke 

Floats  up  with  morning's  fragrant  dew ; 
The  fires  are  dead,  the  ring  is  broke, 
Where  stood  the  many  stand  the  few." 

—  My  thoughts  had  wandered  far  away, 
Borne  off  on  Memory's  outspread  wing, 

To  where  in  deepening  twilight  lay 

The  wrecks  of  friendship's  broken  ring. 

Ah  me  !  of  all  our  goodly  train 

How  few  will  find  our  banquet  hall  I 

Yet  why  with  coward  lips  complain 

That  this  must  lean  and  that  must  fall  ? 


172     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

Cold  is  the  Druid's  altar-stone, 

Its  vanished  flame  no  more  returns ; 

But  ours  no  chilling  damp  has  known,  — 
Unchanged,  unchanging,  still  it  burns. 

So  let  our  broken  circle  stand 

A  wreck,  a  remnant,  yet  the  same, 

While  one  last,  loving,  faithful  hand 
Still  lives  to  feed  its  altar-flame ! 

My  heart  has  gone  back  over  the  waters  to 
my  old  friends  and  my  own  home.  When  this 
vision  has  faded,  I  will  return  to  the  silence  of 
the  lovely  Close  and  the  shadow  of  the  great 
Cathedral. 


V. 

THE  remembrance  of  home,  with  its  early 
and  precious  and  long-enduring  friendships,  has 
intruded  itself  among  my  recollections  of  what 
I  saw  and  heard,  of  what  I  felt  and  thought,  in 
the  distant  land  I  was  visiting.  I  must  return 
to  the  scene  where  I  found  myself  when  the 
suggestion  of  the  broken  circle  ran  away  with 
my  imagination. 

The  literature  of  Stonehenge  is  extensive,  and 
illustrates  the  weakness  of  archaeologists  almost 
as  well  as  the  "  Praetorium  "  of  Scott's  "  Anti 
quary."  "  In  1823,"  says  a  local  handbook, 
"  H.  Browne,  of  Amesbury,  published  '  An  Il 
lustration  of  Stonehenge  and  Abury,'  in  which 
he  endeavored  to  show  that  both  of  these  mon 
uments  were  antediluvian,  and  that  the  lat 
ter  was  formed  under  the  direction  of  Adam. 
He  ascribes  the  present  dilapidated  condition 
of  Stonehenge  to  the  operation  of  the  general 
deluge  ;  for,  he  adds,  4  to  suppose  it  to  be  the 


174     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

work  of  any  people  since  the  flood  is  entirely 
monstrous.' " 

We  know  well  enough  how  great  stones,  — 
pillars  and  obelisks,  —  are  brought  into  place  by 
means  of  our  modern  appliances.  But  if  the 
great  blocks  were  raised  by  a  mob  of  naked 
Picts,  or  any  tribe  that  knew  none  of  the  me 
chanical  powers  but  the  lever,  how  did  they  set 
them  up  and  lay  the  cross-stones,  the  im 
posts,  upon  the  uprights  ?  It  is  pleasant,  once 
in  a  while,  to  think  how  we  should  have  man 
aged  any  such  matters  as  this  if  left  to  our  nat 
ural  resources.  We  are  all  interested  in  the 
make-shifts  of  Robinson  Crusoe.  Now  the 
rudest  tribes  make  cords  of  some  kind,  and 
the  earliest,  or  almost  the  earliest,  of  artificial 
structures  is  an  earth-mound.  If  a  hundred,  or 
hundreds,  of  men  could  drag  the  huge  stones 
many  leagues,  as  they  must  have  done  to  bring 
them  to  their  destined  place,  they  could  have 
drawn  each  of  them  up  a  long  slanting  mound 
ending  in  a  sharp  declivity,  with  a  hole  for  the 
foot  of  the  stone  at  its  base.  If  the  stone  were 
now  tipped  over,  it  would  slide  into  its  place, 
and  could  be  easily  raised  from  its  slanting  posi- 


STONEHENGE.  175 

tion  to  the  perpendicular.  Then  filling  in  the 
space  between  the  mound  and  two  contiguous 
stones,  the  impost  could  be  dragged  up  to  its 
position.  I  found  a  pleasure  in  working  at  this 
simple  mechanical  problem,  as  a  change  from 
the  more  imaginative  thoughts  suggested  by  the 
mysterious  monuments. 

One  incident  of  our  excursion  to  Stonehenge 
had  a  significance  for  me  which  renders  it  mem 
orable  in  my  personal  experience.  As  we  drove 
over  the  barren  plain,  one  of  the  party  suddenly 
exclaimed,  "  Look !  Look !  See  the  lark  rising  !  " 
I  looked  up  with  the  rest.  There  was  the  bright 
blue  sky,  but  not  a  speck  upon  it  which  my  eyes 
could  distinguish.  Again,  one  called  out, 
"  Hark !  Hark !  Hear  him  singing !  "  I  listened, 
but  not  a  sound  reached  my  ear.  Was  it  strange 
that  I  felt  a  momentary  pang?  Those  that 
look  out  at  the  windows  are  darkened,  and  all 
the  daughters  of  music  are  brought  low.  Was 
I  never  to  see  or  hear  the  soaring  songster  at 
Heaven's  gate,  —  unless,  —  unless,  —  if  our  mild 
humanized  theology  promises  truly,  I  may  per 
haps  hereafter  listen  to  him  singing  far  down 
beneath  me  ?  For  in  whatever  world  I  may  find 


176     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

myself,  I  hope  I  shall  always  love  our  poor  little 
spheroid,  so  long  my  home,  which  some  kind 
angel  may  point  out  to  me  as  a  gilded  globule 
swimming  in  the  sunlight  far  away.  After 
walking  the  streets  of  pure  gold  in  the  New 
Jerusalem,  might  not  one  like  a  short  vacation, 
to  visit  the  well-remembered  green  fields  and 
flowery  meadows  ?  I  had  a  very  sweet  emotion 
of  self-pity,  which  took  the  sting  out  of  my 
painful  discovery  that  the  orchestra  of  my  pleas 
ing  life-entertainment  was  unstringing  its  instru 
ments,  and  the  lights  were  being  extinguished, 
—  that  the  show  was  almost  over.  All  this  I 
kept  to  myself,  of  course,  except  so  far  as  I 
whispered  it  to  the  unseen  presence  which  we  all 
feel  is  in  sympathy  with  us,  and  which,  as  it 
seemed  to  my  fancy,  was  looking  into  my  eyes, 
and  through  them  into  my  soul,  with  the  tender, 
tearful  smile  of  a  mother  who  for  the  first  time 
gently  presses  back  the  longing  lips  of  her  as 
yet  unweaned  infant. 

On  our  way  back  from  Stonehenge  we  stopped 
and  took  a  cup  of  tea  with  a  friend  of  our  host, 
Mr.  Nightingale.  His  house,  a  bachelor  estab 
lishment,  was  very  attractive  to  us  by  the  beauty 


SALISBURY.  177 

within  and  around  it.  His  collection  of  "  china," 
as  Pope  and  old-fashioned  people  call  all  sorts 
of  earthenware,  excited  the  enthusiasm  of  our 
host,  whose  admiration  of  some  rare  pieces  in 
the  collection  was  so  great  that  it  would  have 
run  into  envy  in  a  less  generous  nature. 

It  is  very  delightful  to  find  one's  self  in  one 
of  these  English  country  residences.  The  house 
is  commonly  old,  and  has  a  history.  It  is  often 
times  itself  a  record,  like  that  old  farmhouse 
my  friend  John  Bellows  wrote  to  me  about, 
which  chronicled  half  a  dozen  reigns  by  various 
architectural  marks  as  exactly  as  if  it  had  been 
an  official  register.  "  The  stately  homes  of 
England,"  as  we  see  them  at  Wilton  and  Long 
ford  Castle,  are  not  more  admirable  in  their 
splendors  than  "  the  blessed  homes  of  England  " 
in  their  modest  beauty.  Everywhere  one  ma^ 
see  here  old  parsonages  by  the  side  of  ivy- 
mantled  churches,  and  the  comfortable  mansions 
where  generations  of  country  squires  have  lived 
in  peace,  while  their  sons  have  gone  forth  to 
fight  England's  battles,  and  carry  her  flags  of 
war  and  commerce  all  over  the  world.  We  in 
America  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  such  a  pos- 


178      OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

session  as  a  family  home.  We  encamp,  —  not 
under  canvas,  but  in  fabrics  of  wood  or  more 
lasting  materials,  which  are  pulled  down  after 
a  brief  occupancy  by  the  builders,  and  possibly 
their  children,  or  are  modernized  so  that  the 
former  dwellers  in  them  would  never  recognize 
their  old  habitations. 

In  my  various  excursions  from  Salisbury  I  was 
followed  everywhere  by  the  all-pervading  pres 
ence  of  the  towering  spire.  Just  what  it  was  in 
that  earlier  visit,  when  my  eyes  were  undimmed 
and  my  sensibilities  unworn,  just  such  I  found 
it  now.  As  one  drives  away  from  the  town,  the 
roofs  of  the  houses  drop  out  of  the  landscape, 
the  lesser  spires  disappear  one  by  one,  until  the 
great  shaft  is  left  standing  alone,  —  solitary  as 
the  broken  statue  of  Ozymandias  in  the  desert, 
as  the  mast  of  some  mighty  ship  above  the 
waves  which  have  rolled  over  the  foundering 
vessel.  Most  persons  will,  I  think,  own  to  a 
feeling  of  awe  in  looking  up  at  it.  Few  can 
look  down  from  a  great  height  without  creepings 
and  crispations,  if  they  do  not  get  as  far  as 
vertigos  and  that  aerial  calenture  which  prompts 
them  to  jump  from  the  pinnacle  on  which  they 


SALISBURY.  179 

are  standing.  It  does  not  take  much  imagina 
tion  to  make  one  experience  something  of  the 
same  feeling  in  looking  up  at  a  very  tall  steeple 
or  chimney.  To  one  whose  eyes  are  used  to 
Park  Street  and  the  Old  South  steeples  as  stan 
dards  of  height,  a  spire  which  climbs  four  hun 
dred  feet  towards  the  sky  is  a  new  sensation. 
Whether  I  am  more  "  afraid  of  that  which  is 
high  "  than  I  was  at  my  first  visit,  as  I  should 
be  on  the  authority  of  Ecclesiastes,  I  cannot  say, 
but  it  was  quite  enough  for  me  to  let  my  eyes 
climb  the  spire,  and  I  had  no  desire  whatever  to 
stand  upon  that  "  bad  eminence,"  as  I  am  sure 
that  I  shoidd  have  found  it. 

I  soon  noticed  a  slight  deflection  from  the 
perpendicular  at  the  upper  part  of  the  spire. 
This  has  long  been  observed.  I  could  not  say 
that  I  saw  the  spire  quivering  in  the  wind,  as  I 
felt  that  of  Strasburg  doing  when  I  ascended  it, 
—  swaying  like  a  blade  of  grass  when  a  breath  of 
air  passes  over  it.  But  it  has  been,  for  at  least 
two  hundred  years,  nearly  two  feet  out  of  the 
perpendicular.  No  increase  in  the  deviation  was 
found  to  exist  when  it  was  examined  early  in  the 
present  century.  It  is  a  wonder  that  this  slight- 


180     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

looking  structure  can  have  survived  the  blasts, 
and  thunderbolts,  and  earthquakes,  and  the 
weakening  effects  of  time  on  its  stones  and  tim 
bers  for  five  hundred  years.  Since  the  spire  of 
Chichester  Cathedral  fell  in  1861,  sheathing 
itself  in  its  tower  like  a  sword  dropping  into  its 
scabbard,  one  can  hardly  help  looking  with 
apprehension  at  all  these  lofty  fabrics.  I  have 
before  referred  to  the  fall  of  the  spire  of  Tewkes- 
bury  Abbey  church,  three  centuries  earlier. 
There  has  been  a  good  deal  of  fear  for  the  Salis 
bury  spire,  and  great  precautions  have  been 
taken  to  keep  it  firm,  so  that  we  may  hope  it 
will  stand  for  another  five  hundred  years.  It 
ought  to  be  a  "  joy  forever,"  for  it  is  a  thing  of 
beauty,  if  ever  there  were  one. 

I  never  felt  inclined  to  play  the  part  of  the 
young  enthusiast  in  "  Excelsior,"  as  I  looked  up 
at  the  weathercock  which  surmounts  the  spire. 
But  the  man  who  oils  the  weathercock-spindle 
has  to  get  up  to  it  in  some  way,  and  that  way  is 
by  ladders  which  reach  to  within  thirty  feet  of 
the  top,  where  there  is  a  small  door,  through 
which  he  emerges,  to  crawl  up  the  remaining 
distance  on  the  outside.  "  The  situation  and 


SALISBURY.  181 

appearance,"  says  one  of  the  guide-books,  "must 
be  terrific,  yet  many  persons  have  voluntarily 
and  daringly  clambered  to  the  top,  even  in  a 
state  of  intoxication."  Such,  I  feel  sure,  was 
not  the  state  of  my  most  valued  and  exemplary 
clerical  friend,  who,  with  a  cool  head  and  steady 
nerves,  found  himself  standing  in  safety  at  the 
top  of  the  spire,  with  his  hand  upon  the  vane, 
which  nothing  terrestrial  had  ever  looked  down 
upon  in  its  lofty  position,  except  a  bird,  a  bat, 
a  sky-rocket,  or  a  balloon. 

In  saying  that  the  exterior  of  Salisbury  Ca 
thedral  is  more  interesting  than  its  interior,  I 
was  perhaps  unfair  to  the  latter,  which  only 
yields  to  the  surpassing  claims  of  the  wonderful 
structure  as  seen  from  the  outside.  One  may 
get  a  little  tired  of  marble  Crusaders,  with  their 
crossed  legs  and  broken  noses,  especially  if,  as 
one  sometimes  finds  them,  they  are  covered  with 
the  pencilled  autographs  of  cockney  scribblers. 
But  there  are  monuments  in  this  cathedral 
which  excite  curiosity,  and  others  which  awaken 
the  most  striking  associations.  There  is  the 
"  Boy  Bishop,"  his  marble  effigy  protected  from 
vandalism  by  an  iron  cage.  There  is  the  skel- 


182     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

eton  figure  representing  Fox  (who  should  have 
been  called  Goose),  the  poor  creature  who 
starved  himself  to  death  in  trying  to  imitate  the 
fast  of  forty  days  in  the  wilderness.  Since  this 
performance  has  been  taken  out  of  the  list  of 
miracles,  it  is  not  so  likely  to  be  repeated  by 
fanatics.  I  confess  to  a  strong  suspicion  that 
this  is  one  of  the  ambulatory  or  movable  stories, 
like  the  "  hangman's  stone  "  legend,  which  I 
have  found  in  so  many  different  parts  of  Eng 
land.  Skulls  and  crossbones,  sometimes  skele 
tons  or  skeleton-like  figures,  are  not  uncommon 
among  the  sepulchral  embellishments  of  an  ear 
lier  period.  Where  one  of  these  figures  is 
found,  the  forty-day-fast  story  is  likely  to  grow 
out  of  it,  as  the  mistletoe  springs  from  the  oak 
or  apple  tree. 

With  far  different  emotions  we  look  upon  the 
spot  where  lie  buried  many  of  the  Herbert  fam 
ily,  among  the  rest, 

"Sidney's  sister,  Pembroke's  mother," 

for  whom  Ben  Jonson  wrote  the  celebrated  ep 
itaph.  I  am  almost  afraid  to  say  it,  but  I  never 
could  admire  the  line, 

"Lies  the  subject  of  all  verse," 


SALISBURY.  183 

nor  the  idea  of  Time  dropping  his  hour-glass 
and  scythe  to  throw  a  dart  at  the  fleshless  figure 
of  Death.  This  last  image  seems  to  me  about 
the  equivalent  in  mortuary  poetry  of  Roubiliac's 
monument  to  Mrs.  Nightingale  in  mortuary 
sculpture,  —  poor  conceits  both  of  them,  without 
the  suggestion  of  a  tear  in  the  verses  or  in  the 
marble  ;  but  the  rhetorical  exaggeration  does  not 
prevent  us  from  feeling  that  we  are  standing  by 
the  resting-place  of  one  who  was 

"  learn'd  and  fair  and  good  " 

enough  to  stir  the  soul  of  stalwart  Ben  Jonson, 
and  the  names  of  Sidney  and  Herbert  make  us 
forget  the  strange  hyperboles. 

History  meets  us  everywhere,  as  we  stray 
among  these  ancient  monuments.  Under  that 
effigy  lie  the  great  bones  of  Sir  John  Cheyne,  a 
mighty  man  of  war,  said  to  have  been  "  over 
thrown  "  by  Richard  the  Third  at  the  battle  of 
Bosworth  Field.  What  was  left  of  him  was  un 
earthed  in  1789  in  the  demolition  of  the  Beau- 
champ  chapel,  and  his  thigh-bone  was  found  to 
be  four  inches  longer  than  that  of  a  man  of 
common  stature. 

The  reader  may  remember  how  my  recollec- 


184     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

tions   started   from   their   hiding-place  when  I 
came,  in  one  of  our  excursions,  upon  the  name 
of  Lechmere,  as   belonging  to  the  owner  of  a 
fine  estate  by  or  through  which  we  were  driving. 
I  had  a  similar  twinge  of  reminiscence  at  meet 
ing  with  the  name  of  Gorges,  which  is  perpetu 
ated  by  a  stately  monument  at  the  end  of  the 
north  aisle  of  the  cathedral.     Sir  Thomas  Gor 
ges,  Knight  of  Longford  Castle,  may  or  may 
not  have  been  of  the  same  family  as  the  well- 
remembered  grandiose   personage   of   the  New 
England  Pilgrim  period.     The  title  this  gentle 
man  bore  had  a  far  more  magnificent  sound  than 
those   of  his  contemporaries,  Governor  Carver 
and  Elder  Brewster.    No  title  ever  borne  among 
us  has  filled  the  mouth  quite  so  full  as  that  of 
"  Sir  Ferdinando  Gorges,  Lord  Palatine  of  the 
Province  of  Maine,"  a  province  with  "  Gorge- 
ana"  (late  the  plantation  of  Agamenticus)  as 
its   capital.      Everywhere   in   England   a   New 
Englander  is  constantly  meeting  with  names  of 
families  and  places  which  remind  him  that  he 
comes  of  a  graft  from  an  old  tree  on  a  new 
stock.     I  could  not  keep  down  the  associations 
called  up  by  the  name  of  Gorges.     There  is  a 


SALISBURY.  185 

certain  pleasure  in  now  and  then  sprinkling  our 
prosaic  colonial  history  with  the  holy  water  of  a 
high-sounding  title ;  not  that  a  "  Sir  "  before  a 
man's  name  makes  him  any  better, — for  are 
we  not  all  equal,  and  more  than  equal,  to  each 
other  ?  —  but  it  sounds  pleasantly.  Sir  Harry 
Vane  and  Sir  Harry  Frankland  look  prettily  on 
the  printed  page,  as  the  illuminated  capital  at 
the  head  of  a  chapter  in  an  old  folio  pleases 
the  eye  of  the  reader.  Sir  Thomas  Gorges  was 
the  builder  of  Longford  Castle,  now  the  seat  of 
the  Earl  of  Radnor,  whose  family  name  is  Bou- 
verie.  Whether  our  Sir  Ferdinando  was  of  the 
Longford  Castle  stock  or  not  I  must  leave  to 
my  associates  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical 
Society  to  determine. 

We  lived  very  quietly  at  our  temporary  home 
in  Salisbury  Close.  A  pleasant  dinner  with  the 
Dean,  a  stroll  through  the  grounds  of  the  epis 
copal  palace,  with  that  perpetual  feast  of  the 
eyes  which  the  cathedral  offered  us,  made  our 
residence  delightful  at  the  time,  and  keeps  it  so 
in  remembrance.  Besides  the  cathedral  there 
were  the  very  lovely  cloisters,  the  noble  chapter 
house  with  its  central  pillar,  —  this  structure 


186      OUR   HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

has  been  restored  and  rejuvenated  since  my 
earlier  visit,  —  and  there  were  the  peaceful 
dwellings,  where  I  insist  on  believing  that  only 
virtue  and  happiness  are  ever  tenants.  Even 
outside  the  sacred  enclosure  there  is  a  great  deal 
to  enjoy,  in  the  ancient  town  of  Salisbury.  One 
may  rest  under  the  Poultry  Cross,  where  twenty 
or  thirty  generations  have  rested  before  him. 
One  may  purchase  his  china  at  the  well-fur 
nished  establishment  of  the  tenant  of  a  spacious 
apartment  of  ancient  date,  —  "  the  Halle  of 
John  Halle,"  a  fine  private  edifice  built  in  the 
year  1470,  restored  and  beautified  in  1834  ;  the 
emblazonment  of  the  royal  arms  having  been 
executed  by  the  celebrated  architectural  artist 
Pugin.  The  old  houses  are  numerous,  and  some 
of  them  eminently  picturesque. 

Salisbury  was  formerly  very  unhealthy,  on 
account  of  the  low,  swampy  nature  of  its 
grounds.  The  Sanitary  Reform,  dating  from 
about  thirty  years  ago,  had  a  great  effect  on  the 
condition  of  the  place.  Before  the  drainage  the 
annual  mortality  was  twenty-seven  in  the  thou 
sand  ;  since  the  drainage  twenty  in  the  thousand, 
which  is  below  that  of  Boston.  In  the  Close, 


SALISBURY.—  OLD  SARUM.  187 

which  is  a  little  Garden  of  Eden,  with  no  serpent 
in  it  that  I  could  hear  of,  the  deaths  were  only 
fourteen  in  a  thousand.  Happy  little  enclosure, 
where  thieves  cannot  break  through  and  steal, 
where  Death  himself  hesitates  to  enter,  and 
makes  a  visit  only  now  and  then  at  long  inter 
vals,  lest  the  fortunate  inhabitants  should  think 
they  had  already  reached  the  Celestial  City ! 

It  must  have  been  a  pretty  bitter  quarrel  that 
drove  the  tenants  of  the  airy  height  of  Old 
Sarum  to  remove  to  the  marshy  level  of  the 
present  site  of  the  cathedral  and  the  town.  I 
wish  we  could  have  given  more  time  to  the 
ancient  fortress  and  cathedral  town.  This  is 
one  of  the  most  interesting  historic  localities  of 
Great  Britain.  We  looked  from  different  points 
of  view  at  the  mounds  and  trenches  which 
marked  it  as  a  strongly  fortified  position.  For 
many  centuries  it  played  an  important  part  in 
the  history  of  England.  At  length,  however, 
the  jealousies  of  the  laity  and  the  clergy,  a 
squabble  like  that  of  "  town  and  gown,"  but 
with  graver  underlying  causes,  broke  up  the 
harmony  and  practically  ended  the  existence  of 
the  place  except  as  a  monument  of  the  past.  It 


188     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

seems  a  pity  that  the  headquarters  of  the  Prince 
of  Peace  could  not  have  managed  to  maintain 
tranquillity  within  its  own  borders.  But  so  it 
was;  and  the  consequence  followed  that  Old 
Sarum,  with  all  its  grand  recollections,  is  but  a 
collection  of  mounds  and  hollows,  —  as  much  a 
tomb  of  its  past  as  Birs  Nimroud  of  that  great 
city,  Nineveh.  Old  Sarum  is  now  best  remem 
bered  by  its  long-surviving  privilege,  as  a  bo 
rough,  of  sending  two  members  to  Parliament. 
The  farcical  ceremony  of  electing  two  representa 
tives  who  had  no  real  constituency  behind  them 
was  put  an  end  to  by  the  Reform  Act  of  1332. 

Wilton,  the  seat  of  the  Earl  of  Pembroke, 
within  an  easy  drive's  distance  from  Salisbury, 
was  the  first  nobleman's  residence  I  saw  in  my 
early  visit.  Not  a  great  deal  of  what  I  then 
saw  had  survived  in  my  memory.  I  recall  the 
general  effect  of  the  stately  mansion  and  its 
grounds.  A  picture  or  two  of  Vandyke's  had 
not  quite  faded  out  of  my  recollection.  I  could 
not  forget  the  armor  of  Anne  de  Montmorenci, 
—  not  another  Maid  of  Orleans,  but  Constable 
of  France,  —  said  to  have  been  taken  in  battle 
by  an  ancestor  of  the  Herberts.  It  was  one  of 


SALISBURY.— WILTON  HOUSE.         189 

the  first  things  that  made  me  feel  I  was  in  the 
Old  World.  Miles  Standish's  sword  was  as 
far  back  as  New  England  collections  of  armor 
carried  us  at  that  day.  The  remarkable  gal 
lery  of  ancient  sculptures  impressed  me  at  the 
time,  but  no  one  bust  or  statue  survived  as 
a  distinct  image.  Even  the  beautiful  Palladian 
bridge  had  not  pictured  itself  on  my  mental  tab 
let  as  it  should  have  done,  and  I  could  not  have 
taken  my  oath  that  I  had  seen  it.  But  the 
pretty  English  maidens  whom  we  met  on  the  day 
of  our  visit  to  Wilton,  —  daughters  or  grand 
daughters  of  a  famous  inventor  and  engineer, — 
still  lingered  as  vague  and  pleasing  visions,  so 
lovely  had  they  seemed  among  the  daisies  and 
primroses.  The  primroses  and  daisies  were  as 
fresh  in  the  spring  of  1886  as  they  were  in  the 
spring  of  1833,  but  I  hardly  dared  to  ask  after 
the  blooming  maidens  of  that  early  period. 

One  memory  predominates  over  all  others,  in 
walking  through  the  halls,  or  still  more  in  wan 
dering  through  the  grounds,  of  Wilton  House. 
Here  Sir  Philip  Sidney  wrote  his  "  Arcadia,"  and 
the  ever  youthful  presence  of  the  man  himself 
rather  than  the  recollection  of  his  writings  takes 


190     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

possession  of  us.  There  are  three  young  men  in 
history  whose  names  always  present  themselves 
to  me  in  a  special  companionship :  Pico  della 
Mirandola,  "  the  Phosiiix  of  the  Age  "  for  his 
contemporaries  ;  "  the  Admirable  Crichton,"  ac 
cepting  as  true  the  accounts  which  have  come 
down  to  us  of  his  wonderful  accomplishments  ; 
and  Sidney,  the  Bayard  of  England,  "  that  glo 
rious  star,  that  lively  pattern  of  virtue  and  the 
lovely  joy  of  all  the  learned  sort,  .  .  .  born  into 
the  world  to  show  unto  our  age  a  sample  of  an 
cient  virtue."  The  English  paragon  of  excel 
lence  was  but  thirty-two  years  old  when  he  was 
slain  at  Zutphen,  the  Italian  Phoenix  but  thirty- 
one  when  he  was  carried  off  by  a  fever,  and  the 
Scotch  prodigy  of  gifts  and  attainments  was  only 
twenty-two  when  he  was  assassinated  by  his 
worthless  pupil.  Sir  Philip  Sidney  is  better  re 
membered  by  the  draught  of  water  he  gave  the 
dying  soldier  than  by  all  the  waters  he  ever  drew 
from  the  fountain  of  the  Muses,  considerable  as 
are  the  merits  of  his  prose  and  verse.  But  here, 
where  he  came  to  cool  his  fiery  spirit  after  the 
bitter  insult  he  had  received  from  the  Earl  of 
Leicester ;  here,  where  he  mused  and  wrote,  and 


SALISBURY.  -BEMERTON.  191 

shaped  his  lofty  plans  for  a  glorious  future,  he 
lives  once  more  in  our  imagination,  as  if  his 
spirit  haunted  the  English  Arcadia  he  loved  so 
dearly. 

The  name  of  Herbert,  which  we  have  met 
with  in  the  cathedral,  and  which  belongs  to  the 
Earls  of  Pembroke,  presents  itself  to  us  once 
more  in  a  very  different  and  very  beautiful 
aspect.  Between  Salisbury  and  Wilton,  three 
miles  and  a  half  distant,  is  the  little  village  of 
Bemerton,  where  "  holy  George  Herbert  "  lived 
and  died,  and  where  he  lies  buried.  Many 
Americans  who  know  little  else  of  him  recall 
the  lines  borrowed  from  him  by  Irving  in  the 
14  Sketch-Book  "  and  by  Emerson  in  "  Nature." 
The  "  Sketch-Book  "  gives  the  lines  thus  :  — 

"  Sweet  day,  so  pure,  so  calm,  so  bright, 
The  bridal  of  the  earth  and  sky." 

In  other  versions  the  fourth  word  is  cool  instead 
of  pure,  and  cool  is,  I  believe,  the  correct  read 
ing.  The  day  when  we  visited  Bemerton  was, 

according  to  A 's  diary,  "  perfect."     I  was 

struck  with  the  calm  beauty  of  the  scene  around 
us,  the  fresh  greenness  of  all  growing  things, 
and  the  stillness  of  the  river  which  mirrored  the 


192      OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

heavens  above  it.  It  must  have  been  this  re 
flection  which  the  poet  was  thinking  of  when  he 
spoke  of  the  bridal  of  the  earth  and  sky.  The 
river  is  the  Wiltshire  Avon  ;  not  Shakespeare's 
Avon,  but  the  southern  stream  of  the  same 
name,  which  empties  into  the  British  Channel. 

So  much  of  George  Herbert's  intellectual  and 
moral  character  repeat  themselves  in  Emerson 
that  if  I  believed  in  metempsychosis  I  should 
think  that  the  English  saint  had  reappeared  in 
the  American  philosopher.  Their  features  have 
a  certain  resemblance,  but  the  type,  though  an 
exceptional  and  fine  one,  is  not  so  very  rare.  I 
found  a  portrait  in  the  National  Gallery  which 
was  a  good  specimen  of  it  ;  the  bust  of  a  near 
friend  of  his,  more  intimate  with  him  than  al 
most  any  other  person,  is  often  taken  for  that  of 
Emerson.  I  see  something  of  it  in  the  portrait 
of  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  and  I  doubt  not  that  traces 
of  a  similar  mental  resemblance  ran  through 
the  whole  group,  with  individual  characteristics 
which  were  in  some  respects  quite  different.  I 
will  take  a  single  verse  of  Herbert's  from  Em 
erson's  "Nature,"  —  one  of  the  five  which  he 
quotes :  — 


GEORGE  HERBERT.  193 

"  Nothing  hath  got  so  far 
But  man  hath  caught  and  kept  it  as  his  prey  ; 

His  eyes  dismount  the  highest  star  : 

He  is  in  little  all  the  sphere. 
Herbs  gladly  cure  our  flesh  because  that  they 

Find  their  acquaintance  there." 

Emerson  himself  fully  recognizes  his  obligations 
to  "  the  beautiful  psalmist  of  the  seventeenth 
century,"  as  he  calls  George  Herbert.  There 
are  many  passages  in  his  writings  which  sound 
as  if  they  were  paraphrases  from  the  elder  poet. 
From  him  it  is  that  Emerson  gets  a  word  he 
is  fond  of,  and  of  which  his  imitators  are  too 
fond  :  — 

"  Who  sweeps  a  room  as  for  thy  laws 
Makes  that  and  the  action  fine." 

The  little  chapel  in  which  Herbert  officiated  is 
perhaps  half  as  long  again  as  the  room  in  which 
I  am  writing,  but  it  is  four  or  five  feet  narrower, 
—  and  I  do  not  live  in  a  palace.  Here  this 
humble  servant  of  God  preached  and  prayed, 
and  here  by  his  faithful  and  loving  service  he  so 
endeared  himself  to  all  around  him  that  he  has 
been  canonized  by  an  epithet  no  other  saint  of 
the  English  Church  has  had  bestowed  upon 
him.  His  life  as  pictured  by  Izaak  Walton  is, 
to  borrow  one  of  his  own  lines, 


194  OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

"  A  box  where  sweets  compacted  lie ;  " 

and  I  felt,  as  I  left  his  little  chapel  and  the  par 
sonage  which  he  rebuilt  as  a  free-will  offering, 
as  a  pilgrim  might  feel  who  had  just  left  the 
holy  places  at  Jerusalem. 

Among  the  places  which  I  saw  in  my  first 
visit  was  Longford  Castle,  the  seat  of  the  Earl 
of  Radnor.  I  remembered  the  curious  triangu 
lar  building,  constructed  with  reference  to  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  as  churches  are  built  in 
the  form  of  the  cross.  I  remembered  how  the 
omnipresent  spire  of  the  great  cathedral,  three 
miles  away,  looked  down  upon  the  grounds 
about  the  building  as  if  it  had  been  their  next- 
door  neighbor.  I  had  not  forgotten  the  two  cel 
ebrated  Claudes,  Morning  and  Evening.  My 
eyes  were  drawn  to  the  first  of  these  two  pictures 
when  I  was  here  before  ;  now  they  turned  nat 
urally  to  the  landscape  with  the  setting  sun.  I 
have  read  my  St.  Ruskin  with  due  reverence, 
but  I  have  never  given  up  my  allegiance  to 
Claude  Lorraine.  But  of  all  the  fine  paintings 
at  Longford  Castle,  no  one  so  much  impressed 
me  at  my  recent  visit  as  the  portrait  of  Erasmus 
by  Hans  Holbein.  This  is  one  of  those  pictures 


SALISBURY.- LONGFORD  CASTLE.      195 

which  help  to  make  the  Old  World  worth  a  voy 
age  across  the  Atlantic.  Portraits  of  Erasmus 
are  not  uncommon ;  every  scholar  would  know 
him  if  he  met  him  in  the  other  world  with  the 
look  he  wore  on  earth.  All  the  etchings  and 
their  copies  give  a  characteristic  presentation  of 
the  spiritual  precursor  of  Luther,  who  pricked 
the  false  image  with  his  rapier  which  the  sturdy 
monk  slashed  with  his  broadsword.  What  a 
face  it  is  which  Hans  Holbein  has  handed  down 
to  us  in  this  wonderful  portrait  at  Longford 
Castle!  How  dry  it  is  with  scholastic  labor, 
how  keen  with  shrewd  scepticism,  how  worldly- 
wise,  how  conscious  of  its  owner's  wide-awake 
sagacity  !  Erasmus  and  Rabelais,  —  Nature 
used  up  all  her  arrows  for  their  quivers,  and 
had  to  wait  a  hundred  years  and  more  before 
she  could  find  shafts  enough  for  the  outfit  of 
Voltaire,  leaner  and  keener  than  Erasmus,  and 
abnost  as  free  in  his  language  as  the  audacious 
creator  of  Gargantua  and  Pantagruel. 

I  have  not  generally  given  descriptions  of  the 
curious  objects  which  I  saw  in  the  great  houses 
and  museums  which  I  visited.  There  is,  how 
ever,  a  work  of  art  at  Longford  Castle  so  remark- 


196     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

able  that  I  must  speak  of  it.  I  was  so  much 
struck  by  the  enormous  amount  of  skilful  inge 
nuity  and  exquisite  workmanship  bestowed  upon 
it  that  I  looked  up  its  history,  which  I  found  in 
the  "  Beauties  of  England  and  Wales."  This 
is  what  is  there  said  of  the  wonderful  steel  chair : 
"  It  was  made  by  Thomas  Rukers  at  the  city  of 
Augsburgh,  in  the  year  1575,  and  consists  of 
more  than  130  compartments,  all  occupied  by 
groups  of  figures  representing  a  succession  of 
events  in  the  annals  of  the  Roman  Empire,  from 
the  landing  of  ^neas  to  the  reign  of  Eodolphus 
the  Second."  It  looks  as  if  a  life  had  gone  into 
the  making  of  it,  as  a  pair  or  two  of  eyes  go  to 
the  working  of  the  bridal  veil  of  an  empress. 

Fifty  years  ago  and  more,  when  I  was  at 
Longford  Castle  with  my  two  companions,  who 
are  no  more  with  us,  we  found  there  a  pleasant, 
motherly  old  housekeeper,  or  attendant  of  some 
kind,  who  gave  us  a  draught  of  home-made  ale 
and  left  a  cheerful  remembrance  with  us,  as,  I 
need  hardly  say,  we  did  with  her,  in  a  material 
ized  expression  of  our  good-will.  It  always 
rubbed  very  hard  on  my  feelings  to  offer  money 
to  any  persons  who  had  served  me  well,  as  if  they 


SALISBURY.  197 

were  doing  it  for  their  own  pleasure.  It  may 
have  been  the  granddaughter  of  the  kindly  old 
matron  of  the  year  1833  who  showed  us  round, 
and  possibly,  if  I  had  sunk  a  shaft  of  inquiry, 
I  might  have  struck  a  well  of  sentiment.  But 

41  Take,  0  boatman,  thrice  thy  fee," 

carried  into  practical  life,  is  certain  in  its  finan 
cial  result  to  the  subject  of  the  emotional  im 
pulse,  but  is  less  sure  to  call  forth  a  tender 
feeling  in  the  recipient.  One  will  hardly  find  it 
worth  while  to  go  through  the  world  weeping 
over  his  old  recollections,  and  paying  gold  in 
stead  of  silver  and  silver  instead  of  copper  to 
astonished  boatmen  and  bewildered  chamber 
maids. 

On  Sunday,  the  18th  of  July,  we  attended 
morning  service  at  the  cathedral.  The  congre 
gation  was  not  proportioned  to  the  size  of  the 
great  edifice.  These  vast  places  of  worship 
were  built  for  ages  when  faith  was  the  rule  and 
questioning  the  exception.  I  will  not  say  that 
faith  has  grown  cold,  but  it  has  cooled  from 
white  heat  to  cherry  red  or  a  still  less  flaming 
color.  As  to  church  attendance,  I  have  heard 
the  saying  attributed  to  a  great  statesman,  that 


198     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

"  once  a  day  is  Orthodox,  but  twice  a  day  is 
Puritan."  No  doubt  many  of  the  same  class  of 
people  that  used  to  fill  the  churches  stay  at  home 
and  read  about  evolution  or  telepathy,  or  what 
ever  new  gospel  they  may  have  got  hold  of.  Still 
the  English  seem  to  me  a  religious  people  ;  they 
have  leisure  enough  to  say  grace  and  give  thanks 
before  and  after  meals,  and  their  institutions 
tend  to  keep  alive  the  feelings  of  reverence  which 
cannot  be  said  to  be  distinctive  of  our  own 
people. 

In  coming  out  of  the  cathedral,  on  the  Sunday 
I  just  mentioned,  a  gentleman  addressed  me  as 
a  fellow-countryman.  There  is  something,  —  I 
will  not  stop  now  to  try  and  define  it,  —  but 
there  is  something  by  which  we  recognize  an 
American  among  the  English  before  he  speaks 
and  betrays  his  origin.  Our  new  friend  proved 
to  be  the  president  of  one  of  our  American 
colleges  ;  an  intelligent  and  well -instructed  gen 
tleman,  of  course.  By  the  invitation  of  our  host 
he  came  in  to  visit  us  in  the  evening,  and  made 
himself  very  welcome  by  his  agreeable  conver 
sation. 

I  took  great  delight  in  wandering  about  the 


SALISBURY.  199 

old  town  of  Salisbury.  There  are  no  such  sur 
prises  in  our  oldest  places  as  one  finds  in  Ches 
ter,  or  Tewkesbury,  or  Stratford,  or  Salisbury, 
and  I  have  no  doubt  in  scores  or  hundreds  of 
similar  places  which  I  have  never  visited.  The 
best  substitute  for  such  rambles  as  one  can  take 
through  these  mouldy  boroughs  (or  burrows)  is 
to  be  found  in  such  towns  as  Salem,  Newbury- 
port,  Portsmouth.  Without  imagination,  Shake 
speare's  birthplace  is  but  a  queer  old  house,  and 
Anne  Hathaway's  home  a  tumble-down  cottage. 
With  it,  one  can  see  the  witches  of  Salem  Vil 
lage  sailing  out  of  those  little  square  windows, 
which  look  as  if  they  were  made  on  purpose  for 
them,  or  stroll  down  to  Derby's  wharf  and  gaze 
at  "  Cleopatra's  Barge,"  precursor  of  the  yachts 
of  the  Astors  and  Goulds  and  Vanderbilts,  as 
she  comes  swimming  into  the  harbor  in  all  her 
gilded  glory.  But  it  must  make  a  difference 
what  the  imagination  has  to  work  upon,  and  I 
do  not  at  all  wonder  that  Mr.  Ruskin  would  not 
wish  to  live  in  a  land  where  there  are  no  old 
ruins  of  castles  and  monasteries.  Man  will  not 
live  on  bread  only ;  he  wants  a  great  deal  more, 
if  he  can  get  it,  —  frosted  cake  as  well  as  corn- 


200     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

bread  ;  and  the  New  World  keeps  the  imagi 
nation  on  plain  and  scanty  diet,  compared  to 
the  rich  traditional  and  historic  food  which  fur 
nishes  the  banquets  of  the  Old  World. 

What  memories  that  week  in  Salisbury  and 
the  excursions  from  it  have  left  in  my  mind's 
picture  gallery !  The  spire  of  the  great  cathe 
dral  had  been  with  me  as  a  frequent  presence 
during  the  last  fifty  years  of  my  life,  and  this 
second  visit  has  deepened  every  line  of  the  im 
pression,  as  Old  Mortality  refreshed  the  inscrip 
tions  on  the  tombstones  of  the  Covenanters.  I 
find  that  all  these  pictures  which  I  have  brought 
home  with  me  to  look  at,  with 

"that  inward  eye 
Which  is  the  bliss  of  solitude," 

are  becoming  clearer  and  brighter  as  the  excite 
ment  of  overcrowded  days  and  weeks  gradually 
calms  down.  I  can  be  in  those  places  where  I 
passed  days  and  nights,  and  became  habituated 
to  the  sight  of  the  cathedral,  or  of  the  Church 
of  the  Holy  Trinity,  at  morning,  at  noon,  at 
evening,  whenever  I  turned  my  eyes  in  its  direc 
tion.  I  often  close  rny  eyelids,  and  startle  my 
household  by  saying,  "  Now  I  ani  in  Salisbury," 


SALISBURY.  -  BRIGHTON.  201 

or  "  Now  I  am  in  Stratford."  It  is  a  blessed 
thing  to  be  able,  in  the  twilight  of  years,  to  il 
luminate  the  soul  with  such  visions.  The 
Charles,  which  flows  beneath  my  windows,  which 
I  look  upon  between  the  words  of  the  sentence 
I  am  now  writing,  only  turning  my  head  as  I  sit 
at  my  table,  —  the  Charles  is  hardly  more  real 
to  me  than  Shakespeare's  Avon,  since  I  floated 
on  its  still  waters,  or  strayed  along  its  banks 
and  saw  the  cows  reflected  in  the  smooth  ex 
panse,  their  legs  upward,  as  if  they  were  walking 
the  skies  as  the  flies  walk  the  ceiling.  Salisbury 
Cathedral  stands  as  substantial  in  my  thought 
as  our  own  King's  Chapel,  since  I  slumbered 
by  its  side,  and  arose  in  the  morning  to  find  it 
still  there,  and  not  one  of  those  unsubstantial 
fabrics  built  by  the  architect  of  dreams. 

On  Thursday,  the  22d  of  July,  we  left  Salis 
bury  for  Brighton,  where  we  were  to  be  guests 
at  Arnold  House,  the  residence  of  our  kind  host. 
Here  we  passed  another  delightful  week,  with 
everything  around  us  to  contribute  to  our  quiet 
comfort  and  happiness.  The  most  thoughtful 
of  entertainers,  a  house  filled  with  choice  works 


202     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

of  art,  fine  paintings,  and  wonderful  pottery, 
pleasant  walks  and  drives,  a  visitor  now  and 
then,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Goldwin  Smith  among  the 
number,  rest  and  peace  in  a  magnificent  city 
built  for  enjoyment,  —  what  more  could  we 
have  asked  to  make  our  visit  memorable? 
Many  watering-places  look  forlorn  and  desolate 
in  the  intervals  of  "  the  season."  This  was  not 
the  time  of  Brighton's  influx  of  visitors,  but  the 
city  was  far  from  dull.  The  houses  are  very 
large,  and  have  the  grand  air,  as  if  meant  for 
princes ;  the  shops  are  well  supplied  ;  the  salt 
breeze  comes  in  fresh  and  wholesome,  and  the 
noble  esplanade  is  lively  with  promenaders  and 
Bath  chairs,  some  of  them  occupied  by  people 
evidently  ill  or  presumably  lame,  some,  I  sus 
pect,  employed  by  healthy  invalids  who  are  too 
lazy  to  walk.  I  took  one  myself,  drawn  by  an 
old  man,  to  see  how  I  liked  it,  and  found  it 
very  convenient,  but  I  was  tempted  to  ask  him 
to  change  places  and  let  me  drag  him. 

With  the  aid  of  the  guide-book  I  could  de 
scribe  the  wonders  of  the  pavilion  and  the  vari 
ous  changes  which  have  come  over  the  great 
watering-place.  The  grand  walks,  the  two  piers, 


BRIGHTON.  203 

the  aquarium,  and  all  the  great  sights  which  are 
shown  to  strangers  deserve  full  attention  from 
the  tourist  who  writes  for  other  travellers,  but 
none  of  these  things  seem  to  me  so  interesting  as 
what  we  saw  and  heard  in  a  little  hamlet  which 
has  never,  so  far  as  I  know,  been  vulgarized  by 
sight -seers.  We  drove  in  an  open  carriage, 

—  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Willett,   A ,  and  myself, 

—  into  the  country,  which  soon  became  bare, 
sparsely  settled,  a  long  succession  of  rounded 
hills  and  hollows.     These  are  the  South  Downs, 
from  which  comes  the  famous  mutton  known  all 
over  England,  not  unknown  at  the  table  of  our 
Saturday  Club   and  other   well-spread   boards. 
After  a  drive  of  ten  miles  or  more  we  arrived 
at  a  little  "  settlement,"  as  we  Americans  should 
call  it,  and  drove  up  to  the  door  of  a  modest 
parsonage,    where   dwells  the   shepherd  of  the 
South  Down  flock  of  Christian  worshippers.     I 
hope  that  the  good  clergyman,  if  he  ever  hap 
pens  to  see  what  I  am  writing,  will  pardon  me 
for  making  mention  of  his  hidden  retreat,  which 
he   himself  speaks  of   as  "  one  of  the  remoter 
nooks    of    the   old    country."     Nothing   I    saw 
in  England  brought   to  my  mind  Goldsmith's 


204     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

picture  of  "  the  man  to  all  the  country  dear," 
and  his  surroundings,  like  this  visit.  The 
church  dates,  if  I  remember  right,  from  the 
thirteenth  century.  Some  of  its  stones  show 
marks,  as  it  is  thought,  of  having  belonged  to  a 
Saxon  edifice.  The  massive  leaden  font  is  of  a 
very  great  antiquity.  In  the  wall  of  the  church 
is  a  narrow  opening,  at  which  the  priest  is  sup 
posed  to  have  sat  and  listened  to  the  confession 
of  the  sinner  on  the  outside  of  the  building. 
The  dead  lie  all  around  the  church,  under  stones 
bearing  the  dates  of  several  centuries.  One  epi 
taph,  which  the  unlettered  Muse  must  have  dic 
tated,  is  worth  recording.  After  giving  the  chief 
slumberer's  name  the  epitaph  adds,  — 

"  Here  lies  on  either  side,  the  remains  of  each  of  his  former 
wives." 

Those  of  a  third  have  found  a  resting-place  close 
by,  behind  him. 

It  seemed  to  me  that  Mr.  Bunner's  young 
man  in  search  of  Arcady  might  look  for  it  here 
with  as  good  a  chance  of  being  satisfied  as  any 
where  I  can  think  of.  But  I  suppose  that  men 
and  women  and  especially  boys,  would  prove  to 
be  a  good  deal  like  the  rest  of  the  world,  if  one 


BRIGHTON.  205 

lived  here  long  enough  to  learn  all  about  them. 
One  thing  I  can  safely  say,  —  an  English  man 
or  boy  never  goes  anywhere  without  his  fists.  I 
saw  a  boy  of  ten  or  twelve  years,  whose  pleasant 
face  attracted  my  attention.  I  said  to  the  rec 
tor,  "  That  is  a  fine-looking  little  fellow,  and  I 
should  think  an  intelligent  and  amiable  kind  of 
boy."  "  Yes,"  he  said,  "  yes  ;  he  can  strike 
from  the  shoulder  pretty  well,  too.  I  had  to 
stop  him  the  other  day,  indulging  in  that  exer 
cise."  Well,  I  said  to  myself,  we  have  not  yet 
reached  the  heaven  on  earth  which  I  was  fancy 
ing  might  be  embosomed  in  this  peaceful-looking 
hollow.  Youthful  angels  can  hardly  be  in  the 
habit  of  striking  from  the  shoulder.  But  the 
well-known  phrase,  belonging  to  the  pugilist 
rather  than  to  the  priest,  brought  me  back  from 
the  ideal  world  into  which  my  imagination  had 

wandered. 

. 

Our  week  at  Brighton  was  passed  in  a  very 
quiet  but  most  enjoyable  way.  It  could  not  be 
otherwise  with  such  a  host  and  hostess,  always 
arranging  everything  with  reference  to  our  well- 
being  and  in  accordance  with  our  wishes.  I  be 
came  very  fond  of  the  esplanade,  such  a  public 


206     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

walk  as  I  never  saw  anything  to  compare  with. 
In  these  tranquil  days,  and  long,  honest  nights 
of  sleep,  the  fatigues  of  what  we  had  been 
through  were  forgotten,  the  scales  showed  that 
we  were  becoming  less  ethereal  every  day,  and 
we  were  ready  for  another  move. 

We  bade  good-by  to  our  hosts  with  the  most 
grateful  and  the  warmest  feeling  towards  them, 
after  a  month  of  delightful  companionship  and 
the  experience  of  a  hospitality  almost  too  gener 
ous  to  accept,  but  which  they  were  pleased  to 
look  upon  as  if  we  were  doing  them  a  favor. 

On  the  29th  of  July  we  found  ourselves  once 
more  in  London. 


VI 

"WE  found  our  old  quarters  all  ready  and 
awaiting  us.  Mrs.  Mackellar's  motherly  smile, 
Sam's  civil  bow,  and  the  rosy  cheeks  of  many- 
buttoned  Robert  made  us  feel  at  home  as  soon 
as  we  crossed  the  threshold. 

The  dissolution  of  Parliament  had  brought 
"  the  season  "  abruptly  to  an  end.  London  was 
empty.  There  were  three  or  four  millions  of 
people  in  it,  but  the  great  houses  were  for  the 
most  part  left  without  occupants  except  their 
liveried  guardians.  We  kept  as  quiet  as  pos 
sible,  to  avoid  all  engagements.  For  now  we 
were  in  London  for  London  itself,  to  do  shop 
ping,  to  see  sights,  to  be  our  own  master  and 
mistress,  and  to  live  as  independent  a  life  as  we 
possibly  could. 

The  first  thing  we  did  on  the  day  of  our 
arrival  was  to  take  a  hansom  and  drive  over 
to  Chelsea,  to  look  at  the  place  where  Carlyle 
passed  the  larger  part  of  his  life.  The  whole 


208     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

region  about  him  must  have  been  greatly 
changed  during  his  residence  there,  for  the 
Thames  Embankment  was  constructed  long  af 
ter  he  removed  to  Chelsea.  We  had  some  lit 
tle  difficulty  in  finding  the  place  we  were  in 
search  of.  Cheyne  (pronounced  "  Chainie  ") 
Walk  is  a  somewhat  extended  range  of  build 
ings.  Cheyne  Row  is  a  passage  which  reminded 
me  a  little  of  my  old  habitat,  Montgomery 
Place,  now  Bosworth  Street.  Presently  our  at 
tention  was  drawn  to  a  marble  medallion  por 
trait  on  the  corner  building  of  an  ordinary-look 
ing  row  of  houses.  This  was  the  head  of  Car- 
lyle,  and  an  inscription  informed  us  that  he 
lived  for  forty-seven  years  in  the  house  No.  24 
of  this  row  of  buildings.  Since  Carlyle's  home 
life  has  been  made  public,  he  has  appeared  to  us 
in  a  different  aspect  from  the  ideal  one  which 
he  had  before  occupied.  He  did  not  show  to 
as  much  advantage  under  the  Boswellizing  pro 
cess  as  the  dogmatist  of  the  last  century,  dear 
old  Dr.  Johnson.  But  he  remains  not  the  less 
one  of  the  really  interesting  men  of  his  genera 
tion,  —  a  man  about  whom  we  wish  to  know 
all  that  we  have  a  right  to  know. 


CHELSEA  .—  CARL  YLE.  209 

The  sight  of  an  old  nest  over  which  two 
or  three  winters  have  passed  is  a  rather  sad 
dening  one.  The  dingy  three-story  brick  house 
in  which  Carlyle  lived,  one  in  a  block  of  sim 
ilar  houses,  was  far  from  attractive.  It  was 
untenanted,  neglected ;  its  windows  were  un 
washed,  a  pane  of  glass  was  broken  ;  its 
threshold  appeared  untrodden,  its  whole  aspect 
forlorn  and  desolate.  Yet  there  it  stood  be 
fore  me,  all  covered  with  its  associations  as  an 
ivy-clad  tower  with  its  foliage.  I  wanted  to 
see  its  interior,  but  it  looked  as  if  it  did  not 
expect  a  tenant  and  would  not  welcome  a  vis 
itor.  Was  there  nothing  but  this  forbidding 
house-front  to  make  the  place  alive  with  some 
breathing  memory  ?  I  saw  crossing  the  street 
a  middle-aged  woman,  —  a  decent  body,  who 
looked  as  if  she  might  have  come  from  the  lower 
level  of  some  not  opulent  but  respectable  house 
hold.  She  might  have  some  recollection  of  an 
old  man  who  was  once  her  neighbor.  I  asked 
her  if  she  remembered  Mr.  Carlyle.  Indeed  she 
did,  she  told  us.  She  used  to  see  him  often,  in 
front  of  his  house,  putting  bits  of  bread  on  the 
railing  for  the  birds.  He  did  not  like  to  see 


210     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

anything  wasted,  she  said.  The  merest  scrap 
of  information,  but  genuine  and  pleasing ;  an 
instantaneous  photograph  only,  but  it  makes  a 
pretty  vignette  in  the  volume  of  my  reminis 
cences.  There  are  many  considerable  men  in 
every  generation  of  mankind,  but  not  a  great 
number  who  are  personally  interesting,  —  not  a 
great  many  of  whom  we  feel  that  we  cannot 
know  too  much ;  whose  foibles,  even,  we  care  to 
know  about ;  whose  shortcomings  we  try  to  ex 
cuse  ;  who  are  not  models,  but  whose  special 
traits  make  them  attractive.  Carlyle  is  one  of 
these  few,  and  no  revelations  can  prevent  his 
interesting  us.  He  was  not  quite  finished  in 
his  prenatal  existence.  The  bricklayer's  mor 
tar  of  his  father's  calling  stuck  to  his  fingers 
through  life,  but  only  as  the  soil  he  turned  with 
his  ploughshare  clung  to  the  fingers  of  Burns. 
We  do  not  wish  either  to  have  been  other  than 
what  he  was.  Their  breeding  brings  them  to 
the  average  level,  carries  them  more  nearly  to 
the  heart,  makes  them  a  simpler  expression  of 
our  common  humanity.  As  we  rolled  in  the 
cars  by  Ecclefechan,  I  strained  my  eyes  to  take 
in  every  point  of  the  landscape,  every  cottage, 


CHELSEA.  —  CARLYLE.  211 

every  spire,  if  by  any  chance  I  could  find  one 
in  that  lonely  region.  There  was  not  a  bridge 
nor  a  bit  of  masonry  of  any  kind  that  I  did  not 
eagerly  scrutinize,  to  see  if  it  were  solid  and 
honest  enough  to  have  been  built  by  Carlyle's 
father.  Solitary  enough  the  country  looked.  I 
admired  Mr.  Emerson's  devotion  in  seeking 
his  friend  in  his  bare  home  among  what  he  de 
scribes  as  the  "desolate  heathery  hills"  about 
Craigenputtock,  which  were,  I  suppose,  much 
like  the  region  through  which  we  were  passing. 
It  is  one  of  the  regrets  of  my  life  that  I  never 
saw  or  heard  Carlyle.  Nature,  who  seems  to 
be  fond  of  trios,  has  given  us  three  dogmatists, 
all  of  whom  greatly  interested  their  own  gener 
ation,  and  whose  personality,  especially  in  the 
case  of  the  first  and  the  last  of  the  trio,  still  in 
terests  us,  —  Johnson,  Coleridge,  and  Carlyle. 
Each  was  an  oracle  in  his  way,  but  unfortu 
nately  oracles  are  fallible  to  their  descendants. 
The  author  of  "  Taxation  no  Tyranny "  had 
wholesale  opinions,  and  pretty  harsh  ones,  about 
us  Americans,  and  did  not  soften  them  in  ex 
pression  :  "  Sir,  they  are  a  race  of  convicts, 
and  ought  to  be  thankful  for  anything  we  allow 


212     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

them  short  of  hanging."  We  smile  compla 
cently  when  we  read  this  outburst,  which  Mr. 
Croker  calls  in  question,  but  which  agrees  with 
his  saying  in  the  presence  of  Miss  Seward,  "I 
am  willing  to  love  all  mankind  except  an  Amer 
ican." 

A  generation  or  two  later  comes  along  Cole 
ridge,  with  his  circle  of  reverential  listeners. 
He  says  of  Johnson  that  his  fame  rests  princi 
pally  upon  Boswell,  and  that  "  his  bow-wow  man 
ner  must  have  had  a  good  deal  to  do  with  the 
effect  produced."  As  to  Coleridge  himself,  his 
contemporaries  hardly  know  how  to  set  bounds 
to  their  exaltation  of  his  genius.  Dibdin  comes 
pretty  near  going  into  rhetorical  hysterics  in 
reporting  a  conversation  of  Coleridge's  to  which 
he  listened :  "  The  auditors  seemed  to  be  wrapt 
in  wonder  and  delight,  as  one  observation  more 
profound,  or  clothed  in  more  forcible  language, 
than  another  fell  from  his  tongue.  ...  As  I 
retired  homeward  I  thought  a  SECOND  JOHNSON 
had  visited  the  earth  to  make  wise  the  sons  of 
men."  And  De  Quincey  speaks  of  him  as  "  the 
largest  and  most  spacious  intellect,  the  subtlest 
and  most  comprehensive,  in  my  judgment,  that 


CHELSEA.  —  CARL  YLE.  21 3 

has  yet  exjsted  amongst  men. "  One  is  some 
times  tempted  to  wish  that  the  superlative  could 
be  abolished,  or  its  use  allowed  only  to  old  tx- 
perts.  What  are  men  to  do  when  they  get  to 
heaven,  after  having  exhausted  their  vocabulary 
of  admiration  on  earth  ? 

Now  let  us  come  down  to  Carlyle,  and  see 
what  he  says  of  Coleridge.  We  need  not  take 
those  conversational  utterances  which  called 
down  the  wrath  of  Mr.  Swinburne,  and  found 
expression  in  an  epigram  which  violates  all  the 
proprieties  of  literary  language.  Look  at  the 
full-length  portrait  in  the  Life  of  Sterling. 
Each  oracle  denies  his  predecessor,  each  magi 
cian  breaks  the  wand  of  the  one  who  went  be 
fore  him.  There  were  Americans  enough  ready 
to  swear  by  Carlyle  until  he  broke  his  staff  in 
meddling  with  our  anti-slavery  conflict,  and  bur 
ied  it  so  many  fathoms  deep  that  it  could  never 
be  fished  out  again.  It  is  rather  singular  that 
Johnson  and  Carlyle  should  each  of  them  have 
shipwrecked  his  sagacity  and  shown  a  terrible 
leak  in  his  moral  sensibilities  on  coming  in  con 
tact  with  American  rocks  and  currents,  with 
which  neither  had  any  special  occasion  to  con- 


214     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

cern  himself,  and  which  both  had  a  great  deal 
better  have  steered  clear  of. 

But  here  I  stand  once  more  before  the  home 
of  the  long-suffering,  much-laboring,  loud-com 
plaining  Heraclitus  of  his  time,  whose  very  smile 
had  a  grimness  in  it  more  ominous  than  his 
scowl.  Poor  man  !  Dyspeptic  on  a  diet  of  oat 
meal  porridge ;  kept  wide  awake  by  crowing 
cocks  ;  drummed  out  of  his  wits  by  long-contin 
ued  piano-pounding ;  sharp  of  speech,  I  fear,  to 
his  high-strung  wife,  who  gave  him  back  as  good 
as  she  got !  I  hope  I  am  mistaken  about  their 
every-day  relations,  but  again  I  say,  poor  man ! 
—  for  all  his  complaining  must  have  meant  real 
discomfort,  which  a  man  of  genius  feels  not  less, 
certainly,  than  a  common  mortal. 

I  made  a  second  visit  to  the  place  where  he 
lived,  but  I  saw  nothing  more  than  at  the  first. 
I  wanted  to  cross  the  threshold  over  which  he 
walked  so  often,  to  see  the  noise-proof  room  in 
which  he  used  to  write,  to  look  at  the  chimney- 
place  down  which  the  soot  came,  to  sit  where  he 
used  to  sit  and  smoke  his  pipe,  and  to  conjure 
up  his  wraith  to  look  in  once  more  upon  his  old 
deserted  dwelling.  That  vision  was  denied  me. 


LONDON.  — THE  PARK.  215 

After  visiting  Chelsea  we  drove  round  through 
Regent's  Park.  I  suppose  that  if  we  use  the 
superlative  in  speaking  of  Hyde  Park,  Regent's 
Park  will  be  the  comparative,  and  Battersea 
Park  the  positive,  ranking  them  in  the  descend 
ing  grades  of  their  hierarchy.  But  this  is  my 
conjecture  only,  and  the  social  geography  of 
London  is  a  subject  which  only  one  who  has  be 
come  familiarly  acquainted  with  the  place  should 
speak  of  with  any  confidence.  A  stranger  com 
ing  to  our  city  might  think  it  made  little  differ 
ence  whether  his  travelling  Boston  acquaintance 
lived  in  Alpha  Avenue  or  in  Omega  Square,  but 
he  would  have  to  learn  that  it  is  farther  from 
one  of  these  places  to  the  other,  a  great  deal 
farther,  than  it  is  from  Beacon  Street,  Boston, 
to  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York. 

An  American  finds  it  a  little  galling  to  be 
told  that  he  must  not  drive  in  his  numbered 
hansom  or  four-wheeler  except  in  certain  por 
tions  of  Hyde  Park.  If  he  is  rich  enough  to 
keep  his  own  carriage,  or  if  he  will  pay  the  ex 
tra  price  of  a  vehicle  not  vulgarized  by  being  on 
the  numbered  list,  he  may  drive  anywhere  that 
his  Grace  or  his  Lordship  does,  and  perhaps 


216     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

have  a  mean  sense  of  satisfaction  at  finding  him 
self  in  the  charmed  circle  of  exclusive  "  gigman- 
ity."  It  is  a  pleasure  to  meet  none  but  well- 
dressed  and  well-mannered  people,  in  well-ap 
pointed  equipages.  In  the  highroad  of  our  own 
country,  one  is  liable  to  fall  in  with  people  and 
conveyances  that  it  is  far  from  a  pleasure  to 
meet.  I  was  once  driving  in  an  open  carriage, 
with  members  of  my  family,  towards  my  own 
house  in  the  country  town  where  I  was  then 
living.  A  cart  drawn  by  oxen  was  in  the  road 
in  front  of  us.  Whenever  we  tried  to  pass,  the 
men  in  it  turned  obliquely  across  the  road  and 
prevented  us,  and  this  was  repeated  again  and 
again.  I  could  have  wished  I  had  been  driving 
in  Hyde  Park,  where  clowns  and  boors,  with 
their  carts  and  oxen,  do  not  find  admittance. 
Exclusiveness  has  its  conveniences. 

The  next  day,  as  I  was  strolling  through  Bur 
lington  Arcade,  I  saw  a  figure  just  before  me 
which  I  recognized  as  that  of  my  townsman, 
Mr.  Abbott  Lawrence.  He  was  accompanied 
by  his  son,  who  had  just  returned  from  a  trip 
round  the  planet.  There  are  three  grades  of 
recognition,  entirely  distinct  from  each  other: 


LONDON.  217 

the  meeting  of  two  persons  of  different  countries 
who  speak  the  same  language,  —  an  American 
and  an  Englishman,  for  instance  ;  the  meeting 
of  two  Americans  from  different  cities,  as  of  a 
Bostonian  and  a  New  Yorker  or  a  Chicagonian ; 
and  the  meeting  of  two  from  the  same  city,  as 
of  two  Bostonian s. 

The  difference  of  these  recognitions  may  be 
illustrated  by  supposing  certain  travelling  phi 
losophical  instruments,  endowed  with  intelligence 
and  the  power  of  speech,  to  come  together  in 
their  wanderings,  —  let  us  say  in  a  restaurant 
of  the  Palais  Royal.  "  Very  hot,"  says  the  talk 
ing  Fahrenheit  (Thermometer)  from  Boston, 
and  calls  for  an  ice,  which  he  plunges  his  bulb 
into  and  cools  down.  In  comes  an  intelligent 
and  socially  disposed  English  Barometer.  The 
two  travellers  greet  each  other,  not  exactly  as 
old  acquaintances,  but  each  has  heard  very 
frequently  about  the  other,  and  their  relatives 
have  been  often  associated.  "  We  have  a  good 
deal  in  common,"  says  the  Barometer.  "Of 
the  same  blood,  as  we  may  say;  quicksilver 
is  thicker  than  water."  "  Yes,"  says  the  little 
Fahrenheit,  "  and  we  are  both  of  the  same  mer- 


218     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

curial  temperament."  While  their  columns  are 
dancing  up  and  down  with  laughter  at  this 
somewhat  tepid  and  low-pressure  pleasantry, 
there  come  in  a  New  York  Reaumur  and  a  Cen 
tigrade  from  Chicago.  The  Fahrenheit,  which 
has  got  warmed  up  to  temperate,  rises  to  sum- 
mer  heat,  and  even  a  little  above  it.  They  en 
joy  each  other's  company  mightily.  To  be  sure, 
their  scales  differ,  but  have  they  not  the  same 
freezing  and  the  same  boiling  point  ?  To  be 
sure,  each  thinks  his  own  scale  is  the  true  stan 
dard,  and  at  home  they  might  get  into  a  con 
test  about  the  matter,  but  here  in  a  strange 
laud  they  do  not  think  of  disputing.  Now,  while 
they  are  talking  about  America  and  their  own 
local  atmosphere  and  temperature,  there  comes 
in  a  second  Boston  Fahrenheit.  The  two  of  the 
same  name  look  at  each  other  for  a  moment, 
and  rush  together  so  eagerly  that  their  bulbs 
are  endangered.  How  well  they  understand 
each  other !  Thirty-two  degrees  marks  the 
freezing  point.  Two  hundred  and  twelve  marks 
the  boiling  point.  They  have  the  same  scale, 
the  same  fixed  points,  the  same  record :  no  won 
der  they  prefer  each  other's  company  ! 


LONDON.  219 

I  hope  that  my  reader  has  followed  my  illus 
tration,  and  finished  it  off  for  himself.  Let  me 
give  a  few  practical  examples.  An  American 
and  an  Englishman  meet  in  a  foreign  land.  The 
Englishman  has  occasion  to  mention  his  weight, 
which  he  finds  has  gained  in  the  course  of  his 
travels.  "  How  much  is  it  now  ? "  asks  the 
American.  "  Fourteen  stone.  How  much  do  you 
weigh  ?  "  "  Within  four  pounds  of  two  hun 
dred."  Neither  of  them  takes  at  once  any  clear 
idea  of  what  the  other  weighs.  The  American 
has  never  thought  of  his  own,  or  his  friends',  or 
anybody's  weight  in  stones  of  fourteen  pounds. 
The  Englishman  has  never  thought  of  any  one's 
weight  in  pounds.  They  can  calculate  very 
easily  with  a  slip  of  paper  and  a  pencil,  but  not 
the  less  is  their  language  but  half  intelligible  as 
they  speak  and  listen.  The  same  thing  is  in  a 
measure  true  of  other  matters  they  talk  about. 
"  It  is  about  as  large  a  space  as  the  Common," 
says  the  Boston  man.  "It  is  as  large  as  St. 
James's  Park,"  says  the  Londoner.  "  As  high 
as  the  State  House,"  says  the  Bostonian,  or  "  as 
tall  as  Bunker  Hill  Monument,"  or  "  about  as 
big  as  the  Frog  Pond,"  where  the  Londoner 


220     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

would  take  St.  Paul's,  the  Nelson  Column,  the 
Serpentine,  as  his  standard  of  comparison.  The 
difference  of  scale  does  not  stop  here ;  it  runs 
through  a  great  part  of  the  objects  of  thought 
and  conversation.  An  average  American  and 
an  average  Englishman  are  talking  together,  and 
one  of  them  speaks  of  the  beauty  of  a  field  of 
corn.  They  are  thinking  of  two  entirely  differ 
ent  objects  :  one  of  a  billowy  level  of  soft  wav 
ing  wheat,  or  rye,  or  barley ;  the  other  of  a 
rustling  forest  of  tall,  jointed  stalks,  tossing 
their  plumes  and  showing  their  silken  epaulettes, 
as  if  every  stem  in  the  ordered  ranks  were  a 
soldier  in  full  regimentals.  An  Englishman 
planted  for  the  first  time  in  the  middle  of  a  well- 
grown  field  of  Indian  corn  would  feel  as  much 
lost  as  the  babes  in  the  wood.  Conversation  be 
tween  two  Londoners,  two  New  Yorkers,  two 
Bostonians,  requires  no  foot-notes,  which  is  a 
great  advantage  in  their  intercourse. 

To  return  from  my  digression  and  my  illus 
tration.  I  did  not  do  a  great  deal  of  shopping 
myself  while  in  London,  being  contented  to  have 
it  done  for  me.  But  in  the  way  of  looking  in  at 
shop  windows  I  did  a  very  large  business.  Cer- 


LONDON.  221 

tain  windows  attracted  me  by  a  variety  in  unity 
which  surpassed  anything  I  have  been  accus 
tomed  to.  Thus  one  window  showed  every  con 
ceivable  convenience  that  could  be  shaped  in 
ivory,  and  nothing  else.  One  shop  had  such  a 
display  of  magnificent  dressing-cases  that  I 
should  have  thought  a  whole  royal  family  was 
setting  out  on  its  travels.  I  see  the  cost  of  one 
of  them  is  two  hundred  and  seventy  guineas. 
Thirteen  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  seems  a  good 
deal  to  pay  for  a  dressing-case. 

On  the  other  hand,  some  of  the  first-class 
tradesmen  and  workmen  make  no  show  what 
ever.  The  tailor  to  whom  I  had  credentials, 
and  who  proved  highly  satisfactory  to  me,  as  he 
had  proved  to  some  of  my  countrymen  and  to 
Englishmen  of  high  estate,  had  only  one  small 
sign,  which  was  placed  in  one  of  his  windows, 
and  received  his  customers  in  a  small  room  that 
would  have  made  a  closet  for  one  of  our  stylish 
merchant  tailors.  The  bootmaker  to  whom  I 
went  on  good  recommendation  had  hardly  any 
thing  about  his  premises  to  remind  one  of  his 
calling.  He  came  into  his  studio,  took  my 
measure  very  carefully,  and  made  me  a  pair  of 


222     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

what  we  call  Congress  boots,  which  fitted  well 
when  once  on  my  feet,  but  which  it  cost  more 
trouble  to  get  into  and  to  get  out  of  than  I  could 
express  my  feelings  about  without  dangerously 
enlarging  my  limited  vocabulary. 

Bond  Street,  Old  and  New,  offered  the  most 
inviting  windows,  and  I  indulged  almost  to  pro 
fligacy  in  the  prolonged  inspection  of  their  con 
tents.  Stretching  my  walk  along  New  Bond 
Street  till  I  came  to  a  great  intersecting  tho 
roughfare,  I  found  myself  in  Oxford  Street. 
Here  the  character  of  the  shop  windows  changed 
at  once.  Utility  and  convenience  took  the  place 
of  show  and  splendor.  Here  I  found  various 
articles  of  use  in  a  household,  some  of  which 
were  new  to  me.  It  is  very  likely  that  I  could 
have  found  most  of  them  in  our  own  Boston 
Cornhill,  but  one  often  overlooks  things  at  home 
which  at  once  arrest  his  attention  when  he  sees 
them  in  a  strange  place.  I  saw  great  numbers 
of  illuminating  contrivances,  some  of  which 
pleased  me  by  their  arrangement  of  reflectors. 
Bryant  and  May's  safety  matches  seemed  to  be 
used  everywhere.  I  procured  some  in  Boston 
with  these  names  on  the  box,  but  the  label  said 


LONDON.  223 

they  were  made  in  Sweden,  and  they  diffused 
vapors  that  were  enough  to  produce  asphyxia. 
I  greatly  admired  some  of  Dr.  Dresser's  water- 
cans  and  other  contrivances,  modelled  more  or 
less  after  the  antique,  but  I  found  an  abundant 
assortment  of  them  here  in  Boston,  and  I  have 
one  I  obtained  here  more  original  in  design 
and  more  serviceable  in  daily  use  than  any  I 
saw  in  London.  I  should  have  regarded  Wol- 
verhampton,  as  we  glided  through  it,  with  more 
interest,  if  I  had  known  at  that  time  that  the  in 
ventive  Dr.  Dresser  had  his  headquarters  in  that 
busy-looking  town. 

One  thing,  at  least,  I  learned  from  my  London 
experience :  better  a  small  city  where  one  knows 
all  it  lias  to  offer,  than  a  great  city  where  one 
has  no  disinterested  friend  to  direct  him  to  the 
right  places  to  find  what  he  wants.  But  of  course 
there  are  some  grand  magazines  which  are 
known  all  the  world  over,  and  which  no  one 
should  leave  London  without  entering  as  a 
looker-on,  if  not  as  a  purchaser. 

There  was  one  place  I  determined  to  visit,  and 
one  man  I  meant  to  see,  before  returning.  The 
place  was  a  certain  book-store  or  book-shop,  and 


224     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

the  person  was  its  proprietor,  Mr.  Bernard  Qua- 
ritch.  I  was  getting  very  much  pressed  for  time, 
and  I  allowed  ten  minutes  only  for  my  visit.  I 
never  had  any  dealings  with  Mr.  Quaritch,  but 
one  of  my  near  relatives  had,  and  I  had  often 
received  his  catalogues,  the  scale  of  prices  in 
which  had  given  me  an  impression  almost  of 
sublimity.  I  found  Mr.  Bernard  Quaritch  at 
No.  15  Piccadilly,  and  introduced  myself,  not  as 
one  whose  name  he  must  know,  but  rather  as  a 
stranger,  of  whom  he  might  have  heard  through 
my  relative.  The  extensive  literature  of  cata 
logues  is  probably  little  known  to  most  of  my 
readers.  I  do  not  pretend  to  claim  a  thorough 
acquaintance  with  it,  but  I  know  the  luxury  of 
reading  good  catalogues,  and  such  are  those  of 
Mr.  Quaritch.  I  should  like  to  deal  with  him ; 
for  if  he  wants  a  handsome  price  for  what  he 
sells,  he  knows  its  value,  and  does  not  offer  the 
refuse  of  old  libraries,  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
all  that  is  most  precious  in  them  is  pretty  sure 
to  pass  through  his  hands,  sooner  or  later. 

"  Now,  Mr.  Quaritch,"  I  said,  after  introdu 
cing  myself,  "  I  have  ten  minutes  to  pass  with 
you.  You  must  not  open  a  book ;  if  you  do  I 


LONDON.  225 

am  lost,  for  I  shall  have  to  look  at  every  illumi 
nated  capital,  from  the  first  leaf  to  the  colophon." 
Mr.  Quaritch  did  not  open  a  single  book,  but  let 
me  look  round  his  establishment,  and  answered 
my  questions  very  courteously.  It  so  happened 
that  while  I  was  there  a  gentleman  came  in 
whom  I  had  previously  met,  —  my  namesake, 
Mr.  Holmes,  the  Queen's  librarian  at  Windsor 
Castle.  My  ten  minutes  passed  very  rapidly  in 
conversation  with  these  two  experts  in  books, 
the  bibliopole  and  the  bibliothecary.  No  place 
that  I  visited  made  me  feel  more  thoroughly 
that  I  was  in  London,  the  great  central  mart  of 
all  that  is  most  precious  in  the  world. 

Leave  at  home  all  your  guineas,  ye  who 
enter  here,  would  be  a  good  motto  to  put  over 
his  door,  unless  you  have  them  in  plenty  and 
can  spare  them,  in  which  case  Take  all  your 
f/uincas  with  you  would  be  a  better  one.  For 
you  can  here  get  their  equivalent,  and  more  than 
their  equivalent,  in  the  choicest  products  of  the 
press  and  the  finest  work  of  the  illuminator,  the 
illustrator,  and  the  binder.  You  will  be  sorely 
tempted.  But  do  not  be  surprised  when  you 
ask  the  price  of  the  volume  you  may  happen  to 


226      OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

fancy.  You  are  not  dealing  with  a  bouquiniste 
of  the  Quais,  in  Paris.  You  are  not  foraging  in 
an  old  book-shop  of  New  York  or  Boston.  Do 
not  suppose  that  I  undervalue  these  dealers  in 
old  and  rare  volumes.  Many  a  much-prized 
rarity  have  I  obtained  from  Drake  and  Burn- 
ham  and  others  of  my  townsmen,  and  from 
Denham  in  New  York ;  and  in  my  student  years 
many  a  choice  volume,  sometimes  even  an  Aldus 
or  an  Elzevir,  have  I  found  among  the  trumpery 
spread  out  on  the  parapets  of  the  quays.  But 
there  is  a  difference  between  going  out  on  the 
Fourth  of  July  with  a  militia  musket  to  shoot 
any  catbird  or  "  chipmunk  "  that  turns  up  in  a 
piece  of  woods  within  a  few  miles  of  our  own 
cities,  and  shooting  partridges  in  a  nobleman's 
preserves  on  the  First  of  September.  I  confess 
to  having  felt  a  certain  awe  on  entering  the  pre 
cincts  made  sacred  by  their  precious  contents. 
The  lord  and  master  of  so  many  Editiones 
Principes,  the  guardian  of  this  great  nursery 
full  of  incunabula,  did  not  seem  to  me  like  a 
simple  tradesman.  I  felt  that  I  was  in  the 
presence  of  the  literary  purveyor  of  royal  and 
imperial  libraries,  the  man  before  whom  million- 


LONDON.  227 

aires  tremble  as  they  calculate,  and  billionaires 
pause  and  consider.  I  have  recently  received 
two  of  Mr.  Qiiariti-h's  catalogues,  from  which  I 
will  give  my  reader  an  extract  or  two,  to  show 
him  what  kind  of  articles  this  prince  of  biblio 
poles  deals  in. 

Perhaps  you  would  like  one  of  those  romances 
which  turned  the  head  of  Don  Quixote.  Here 
is  a  volume  which  will  be  sure  to  please  you. 
It  is  on  one  of  his  lesser  lists,  confined  princi 
pally  to  Spanish  and  Portuguese  works :  — 

"Amadis  de  Gaula  .  .  .  folio,  gothic  letter, 
FIRST  EDITION,  unique  .  .  .  red  morocco  super 
extra,  double  with  olive  moroc-co,  richly  gilt, 
tooled  to  an  elegant  Grolier  design,  gilt  edges 
...  in  a  neat  case." 

A  pretty  present  for  a  scholarly  friend.  A 
nice  old  book  to  carry  home  for  one's  own 
library.  Two  hundred  pounds  —  one  thousand 
dollars  —  will  make  you  the  happy  owner  of 
this  volume. 

But  if  you  would  have  also  on  your  shelves 
the  first  edition  of  the  "  Cronica  del  famoso  ca- 
baluero  cid  Ruy  Diaz  Campadero,"  not  "  richly 
gilt,"  not  even  bound  in  leather,  but  in  "  cloth 


228     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

boards,"  you  will  have  to  pay  two  hundred  and 
ten  pounds  to  become  its  proprietor.  After 
this  you  will  not  be  frightened  by  the  thought 
of  paying  three  hundred  dollars  for  a  little 
quarto  giving  an  account  of  the  Virginia  Adven 
turers.  You  will  not  shrink  from  the  idea  of 
giving  something  more  than  a  hundred  guineas 
for  a  series  of  Hogarth's  plates.  But  when  it 
comes  to  Number  1001  in  the  May  catalogue, 
and  you  see  that  if  you  would  possess  a  first 
folio  Shakespeare,  "  untouched  by  the  hand  of 
any  modern  renovator,"  you  must  be  prepared 
to  pay  seven  hundred  and  eighty-five  pounds, 
almost  four  thousand  dollars,  for  the  volume,  it 
would  not  be  surprising  if  you  changed  color 
and  your  knees  shook  under  you.  No  doubt 
some  brave  man  will  be  found  to  carry  off  that 
prize,  in  spite  of  the  golden  battery  which  de 
fends  it,  perhaps  to  Cincinnati,  or  Chicago,  or 
San  Francisco.  But  do  not  be  frightened. 
These  Alpine  heights  of  extravagance  climb  up 
from  the  humble  valley  where  shillings  and  six 
pences  are  all  that  are  required  to  make  you 
a  purchaser. 

One  beauty  of  the  Old  World  shops  is  that 


LONDON.  229 

if  a  visitor  comes  back  to  the  place  where  he 
left  them  fifty  years  before,  he  finds  them,  or 
has  a  -ivat  chance  of  finding  them,  just  where 
they  stood  at  his  former  visit.  In  driving  down 
to  the  old  city,  to  the  place  of  business  of  the 
Barings,  I  found  many  streets  little  changed. 
Temple  Bar  was  gone,  and  the  much-abused 
griffin  stood  in  its  place.  There  was  a  shop 
close  to  Temple  Bar,  where,  in  1834,  I  had 
bought  some  brushes.  I  had  no  difficulty  in 
finding  Prout's,  and  I  could  not  do  less  than  go 
in  and  buy  some  more  brushes.  I  did  not  ask 
the  young  man  who  served  me  how  the  old 
shopkeeper  who  attended  to  my  wants  on  the 
earlier  occasion  was  at  this  time.  But  I  thought 
what  a  different  color  the  locks  these  brushes 
smooth  show  from  those  that  knew  their  prede 
cessors  in  the  earlier  decade ! 

I  ought  to  have  made  a  second  visit  to  the 
Tower,  so  tenderly  spoken  of  by  Artemus  Ward 
as  "a  sweet  boon,"  so  vividly  remembered  by 
me  as  the  scene  of  a  personal  encounter  with 
one  of  the  animals  then  kept  in  the  Tower  me 
nagerie.  But  the  project  added  a  stone  to  the 
floor  of  the  underground  thoroughfare  which  is 
paved  with  good  intentions. 


230     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

St.  Paul's  I  must  and  did  visit.  The  most 
striking  addition  since  I  was  there  is  the  mas 
sive  monument  to  the  Duke  of  Wellington. 
The  great  temple  looked  rather  bare  and  un 
sympathetic.  Poor  Dr.  Johnson,  sitting  in  semi- 
nude  exposure,  looked  to  me  as  unhappy  as  our 
own  half -naked  Washington  at  the  national 
capital.  The  Judas  of  Matthew  Arnold's  poem 
would  have  cast  his  cloak  over  those  marble 
shoulders,  if  he  had  found  himself  in  St.  Paul's, 
and  have  earned  another  respite.  We  brought 
away  little,  I  fear,  except  the  grand  effect  of 
the  dome  as  we  looked  up  at  it.  It  gives  us  a 
greater  idea  of  height  than  the  sky  itself,  which 
we  have  become  used  to  looking  upon. 

A  second  visit  to  the  National  Gallery  was 

made  in  company  with  A .  It  was  the 

repetition  of  an  attempt  at  a  draught  from  the 
Cup  of  Tantalus.  I  was  glad  of  a  sight  of  the 
Botticellis,  of  which  I  had  heard  so  much,  and 
others  of  the  more  recently  acquired  paintings 
of  the  great  masters ;  of  a  sweeping  glance  at 
the  Turners ;  of  a  look  at  the  well-remembered 
Hogarths  and  the  memorable  portraits  by  Sir 
Joshua.  I  carried  away  a  confused  mass  of  im- 


LONDON.  231 

pressions,  much  as  the  soldiers  that  sack  a  city 
go  off  with  all  the  precious  things  they  can 
snatch  up,  huddled  into  clothes-bags  and  pillow 
cases.  I  ain  reminded,  too,  of  Mr.  Galton's 
composite  portraits  ;  a  thousand  glimpses,  as  one 
passes  through  the  long  halls  lined  with  paint 
ings,  all  blending  in  one  not  unpleasing  general 
effect,  out  of  which  emerges  from  time  to  time 
some  single  distinct  image. 

Ill  the  same  way  we  passed  through  the  ex 
hibition  of  paintings  at  the  Royal  Academy.  I 

noticed  that  A paid  special  attention  to  the 

portraits  of  young  ladies  by  John  Sargent  and 
by  Collier,  while  I  was  more  particularly  struck 
with  the  startling  portrait  of  an  ancient  person 
age  in  a  full  suit  of  wrinkles,  such  as  Rembrandt 
used  to  bring  out  with  wonderful  effect.  Hunt 
ing  in  couples  is  curious  and  instructive  ;  the 
scent  for  this  or  that  kind  of  game  is  sure  to  be 
very  different  in  the  two  individuals. 

I  made  but  two  brief  visits  to  the  British 
Museum,  and  I  can  easily  instruct  my  reader  so 
that  he  will  have  no  difficulty,  if  he  will  follow 
my  teaching,  in  learning  how  not  to  see  it. 
When  he  has  a  spare  hour  at  his  disposal,  let 


232     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

him  drop  in  at  the  Museum,  and  wander  among 
its  books  and  its  various  collections.  He  will 
know  as  much  about  it  as  the  fly  that  buzzes  in 
at  one  window  and  out  at  another.  If  I  were 
asked  whether  I  brought  away  anything  from 
my  two  visits,  I  should  say,  Certainly  I  did. 
The  fly  sees  some  things,  not  very  intelligently, 
but  he  cannot  help  seeing  them.  The  great 
round  reading-room,  with  its  silent  students, 
impressed  me  very  much.  I  looked  at  once  for 
the  Elgin  Marbles,  but  casts  and  photographs 
and  engravings  had  made  me  familiar  with  their 
chief  features.  I  thought  I  knew  something  of 
the  sculptures  brought  from  Nineveh,  but  I  was 
astonished,  almost  awe-struck,  at  the  sight  of 
those  mighty  images  which  mingled  with  the 
visions  of  the  Hebrew  prophets.  I  did  not 
marvel  more  at  the  skill  and  labor  expended 
upon  them  by  the  Assyrian  artists  than  I  did  at 
the  enterprise  and  audacity  which  had  brought 
them  safely  from  the  mounds  under  which  they 
were  buried  to  the  light  of  day  and  the  heart  of 
a  great  modern  city.  I  never  thought  that  I 
should  live  to  see  the  Birs  Nimroud  laid  open, 
and  the  tablets  in  which  the  history  of  Nebu- 


LOXDON.  —  TI2E  BRITISH  MUSEUM.    233 

chadnezzar  was  recorded  spread  before  me. 
The  Empire  of  the  Spade  in  the  world  of  his 
tory  was  founded  at  Nineveh  by  Layard,  a  great 
province  added  to  it  by  Schliemann,  and  its 
boundary  extended  by  numerous  explorers,  some 
of  whom  are  diligently  at  work  at  the  present 
day.  I  feel  very  grateful  that  many  of  its  reve 
lations  have  been  made  since  I  have  been  a  ten 
ant  of  the  travelling  residence  which  holds  so 
many  secrets  in  its  recesses. 

There  is  one  lesson  to  be  got  from  a  visit  of 
an  hour  or  two  to  the  British  Museum,  — 
namely,  the  fathomless  abyss  of  our  own  igno 
rance.  One  is  almost  ashamed  of  his  little  pal 
try  heartbeats  in  the  presence  of  the  rushing 
and  roaring  torrent  of  Niagara.  So  if  he  has 
published  a  little  book  or  two,  collected  a  few 
fossils,  or  coins,  or  vases,  he  is  crushed  by  the 
vastness  of  the  treasures  in  the  library  and  the 
collections  of  this  universe  of  knowledge. 

I  have  shown  how  not  to  see  the  British 
Museum  ;  I  will  tell  how  to  see  it. 

Take  lodgings  next  door  to  it,  —  in  a  garret, 
if  you  cannot  afford  anything  better,  —  and  pass 
all  your  days  at  the  Museum  during  the  whole 


234     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

period  of  your  natural  life.  At  threescore  and 
ten  you  will  have  some  faint  conception  of  the 
contents,  significance,  and  value  of  this  great 
British  institution,  which  is  as  nearly  as  any  one 
spot  the  noeud  vital  of  human  civilization,  a  stab 
at  which  by  the  dagger  of  anarchy  would  fitly 
begin  the  reign  of  chaos. 

On  the  3d  of  August,  a  gentleman,  Mr.  Wed- 
more,  who  had  promised  to  be  my  guide  to 
certain  interesting  localities,  called  for  me,  and 
we  took  a  hansom  for  the  old  city.  The  first 
place  we  visited  was  the  Temple,  a  collection  of 
buildings  with  intricate  passages  between  them, 
some  of  the  edifices  reminding  me  of  our  col 
lege  dormitories.  One,  however,  was  a  most  ex 
traordinary  exception,  —  the  wonderful  Temple 
church,  or  rather  the  ancient  part  of  it  which  is 
left,  the  round  temple.  We  had  some  trouble 
to  get  into  it,  but  at  last  succeeded  in  finding  a 
slip  of  a  girl,  the  daughter  of  the  janitor,  who 
unlocked  the  door  for  us.  It  affected  my  imagi 
nation  strangely  to  see  this  girl  of  a  dozen  years 
old,  or  thereabouts,  moving  round  among  the 
monuments  which  had  kept  their  place  there  for 
some  six  or  seven  hundred  years ;  for  the  church 


LONDON.  235 

was  built  in  the  year  1185,  and  the  most  recent 
of  the  crusaders'  monuments  is  said  to  date  as 
far  back  as  1241.  Their  effigies  have  lain  in 
this  vast  city,  and  passed  unharmed  through  all 
its  convulsions.  The  Great  Fire  must  have 
crackled  very  loud  in  their  stony  ears,  and  they 
must  have  shaken  day  and  night,  as  the  bodies 
of  the  victims  of  the  Plague  were  rattled  over 
the  pavements. 

Near  the  Temple  church,  in  a  green  spot 
among  the  buildings,  a  plain  stone  laid  flat  on 
the  turf  bears  these  words  :  "  Here  lies  Oliver 
Goldsmith."  I  believe  doubt  has  been  thrown 
upon  the  statement  that  Goldsmith  was  buried 
in  that  place,  but,  as  some  poet  ought  to  have 
written, 

Where  doubt  is  disenchantment 
'  T  is  wisdom  to  believe. 

We  do  not  "  drop  a  tear  "  so  often  as  our  Delia 
Cruscan  predecessors,  but  the  memory  of  the 
author  of  the  "  Vicar  of  Wakefield  "  stirred  my 
feelings  more  than  a  whole  army  of  crusaders 
would  have  done.  A  pretty  rough  set  of  fili 
busters  they  were,  no  doubt. 

The  whole  group  to  which  Goldsmith  belonged 


236      OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

came  up  before  me,  and  as  the  centre  of  that 
group  the  great  Dr.  Johnson  ;  not  the  Johnson 
of  the  "  Rambler,"  or  of  "  The  Vanity  of  Human 
Wishes,"  or  even  of  "  Rasselas,"  but  Boswell's 
Johnson,  dear  to  all  of  us,  the  "  Grand  Old 
Man  "  of  his  time,  whose  foibles  we  care  more  for 
than  for  most  great  men's  virtues.  Fleet  Street, 
which  he  loved  so  warmly,  was  close  by.  Bolt 
Court,  entered  from  it,  where  he  lived  for  many 
of  his  last  years,  and  where  he  died,  was  the 
next  place  to  visit.  I  found  Fleet  Street  a  good 
deal  like  Washington  Street  as  I  remember  it 
in  former  years.  When  I  came  to  the  place 
pointed  out  as  Bolt  Court,  I  could  hardly  believe 
my  eyes  that  so  celebrated  a  place  of  residence 
should  be  entered  by  so  humble  a  passageway. 
I  was  very  sorry  to  find  that  No.  3,  where  he 
lived,  was  demolished,  and  a  new  building 
erected  in  its  place.  In  one  of  the  other  houses 
in  this  court  he  is  said  to  have  labored  on  his 
dictionary.  Near  by  was  a  building  of  mean 
aspect,  in  which  Goldsmith  is  said  to  have  at 
one  time  resided.  But  my  kind  conductor  did 
not  profess  to  be  well  acquainted  with  the  local 
antiquities  of  this  quarter  of  London. 


LONDON.  — THE   COLONIAL  EXHIBITION.    2-°>7 

If  I  had  a  long  future  before  me,  I  should 
like  above  all  things  to  study  London  with  a 
dark  lantern,  so  to  speak,  myself  in  deepest 
shadow  and  all  I  wanted  to  see  in  clearest  light. 
Then  I  should  want  time,  time,  time.  For  it  is 
a  sad  fact  that  sight-seeing  as  commonly  done 
is  one  of  the  most  wearying  things  in  the  world, 
and  takes  the  life  out  of  any  but  the  sturdiest 
or  the  most  elastic  natures  more  efficiently  than 
would  a  reasonable  amount  of  daily  exercise  on 
a  treadmill.  In  my  younger  days  I  used  to  find 
that  a  visit  to  the  gallery  of  the  Louvre  was 
followed  by  more  fatigue  and  exhaustion  than 
the  same  amount  of  time  spent  in  walking  the 
wards  of  a  hospital. 

Another  grand  sight  there  was,  not  to  be  over 
looked,  namely,  the  Colonial  Exhibition.  The 
popularity  of  this  immense  show  was  very  great, 

and  we   found   ourselves,  A and  I,  in  the 

midst  of  a  vast  throng,  made  up  of  respectable 
and  comfortable  looking  people.  It  was  not 
strange  that  the  multitude  flocked  to  this  exhi 
bition.  There  was  a  jungle,  with  its  (stuffed) 
monsters,  —  tigers,  serpents,  elephants  ;  there 
were  carvings  which  may  well  have  cost  a  life 


238     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

apiece,  and  stuffs  which  none  but  an  empress 
or  a  millionairess  would  dare  to  look  at.  All 
the  arts  of  the  East  were  there  in  their  perfec 
tion,  and  some  of  the  artificers  were  at  their 
work.  We  had  to  content  ourselves  with  a 
mere  look  at  all  these  wonders.  It  was  a  pity ; 
instead  of  going  to  these  fine  shows  tired,  sleepy, 
wanting  repose  more  than  anything  else,  we 
should  have  come  to  them  fresh,  in  good  condi 
tion,  and  had  many  days  at  our  disposal.  I 
learned  more  in  a  visit  to  the  Japanese  exhibi 
tion  in  Boston  than  I  should  have  learned  in 
half  a  dozen  half -awake  strolls  through  this  mul 
titudinous  and  most  imposing  collection  of  all 

"  The  gorgeous  East  with  richest  hand 
Showers  on  her  kings," 

and  all  the  masterpieces  of  its  wonder-working 
artisans. 

One  of  the  last  visits  we  paid  before  leaving 
London  for  a  week  in  Paris  was  to  the  South 
Kensington  Museum.  Think  of  the  mockery  of 
giving  one  hour  to  such  a  collection  of  works  of 
art  and  wonders  of  all  kinds !  Why  should  I 
consider  it  worth  while  to  say  that  we  went  there 
at  all  ?  All  manner  of  objects  succeeded  each 


LONDON.- SOUTH  KENSINGTON.       239 

other  in  a  long  series  of  dissolving  views,  so  to 
speak,  nothing  or  next  to  nothing  having  a 
chance  to  leave  its  individual  impress.  In  the 
battle  for  life  which  took  place  in  my  memory, 
as  it  always  does  among  the  multitude  of  claim 
ants  for  a  permanent  hold,  I  find  that  two  ob 
jects  came  out  survivors  of  the  contest.  The 
first  is  the  noble  cast  of  the  column  of  Trajan, 
vast  in  dimensions,  crowded  with  history  in  its 
most  striking  and  enduring  form  ;  a  long  array 
of  figures  representing  in  unquestioned  realism 
the  military  aspect  of  a  Roman  army.  The  sec 
ond  case  of  survival  is  thus  described  in  the  cat 
alogue  :  "  An  altar  or  shrine  of  a  female  saint, 
recently  acquired  from  Padua,  is  also  ascribed 
to  the  same  sculptor  [Donatello].  This  very 
valuable  work  of  art  had  for  many  years  been 
used  as  a  drinking-trough  for  horses.  A  hole 
has  been  roughly  pierced  in  it."  I  thought  the 
figure  was  the  most  nearly  perfect  image  of 
heavenly  womanhood  that  I  had  ever  looked 
upon,  and  I  could  have  gladly  given  my  whole 
hour  to  sitting  —  I  could  almost  say  kneeling  — 
before  it  in  silent  contemplation.  I  found  the 
curator  of  the  Museum,  Mr.  Soden  Smith,  shared 


240     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

my  feelings  with  reference  to  the  celestial  love 
liness  of  this  figure.  Which  is  best,  to  live  in 
a  country  where  such  a  work  of  art  is  taken  for 
a  horse-trough,  or  in  a  country  where  the  pro 
ducts  from  the  studio  of  a  self-taught  handi 
craftsman,  equal  to  the  shaping  of  a  horse-trough 
and  not  much  more,  are  put  forward  as  works 
of  art  ? 

A  little  time  before  my  visit  to  England,  be 
fore  I  had  even  thought  of  it  as  a  possibility,  I 
had  the  honor  of  having  two  books  dedicated  to 
me  by  two  English  brother  physicians.  One  of 
these  two  gentlemen  was  Dr.  Walshe,  of  whom 
I  shall  speak  hereafter ;  the  other  was  Dr.  J. 
Milner  Fothergill.  The  name  Fothergill  was 
familiar  to  me  from  my  boyhood.  My  old  towns 
man,  Dr.  Benjamin  Waterhouse,  who  died  in 
1846  at  the  age  of  ninety-two,  had  a  great  deal 
to  say  about  his  relative  Dr.  John  Fothergill, 
the  famous  Quaker  physician  of  the  last  century, 
of  whom  Benjamin  Franklin  said,  "  I  can  hardly 
conceive  that  a  better  man  ever  existed."  Dr. 
and  Mrs.  Fothergill  sent  us  some  beautiful  flow 
ers  a  little  before  we  left,  and  when  I  visited 
him  he  gave  me  a  medallion  of  his  celebrated 
kinsman. 


LONDON.  241 

London  is  a  place  of  mysteries.  Looking  out 
of  one  of  the  windows  at  the  back  of  Dr.  Fother- 
gill's  house,  I  saw  an  immense  wooden  blind, 
such  as  we  have  on  our  windows  in  summer,  but 
reaching  from  the  ground  as  high  as  the  top  of 
the  neighboring  houses.  While  admitting  the 
air  freely,  it  shut  the  property  to  which  it  be 
longed  completely  from  sight.  I  asked  the 
meaning  of  this  extraordinary  structure,  and 
learned  that  it  was  put  up  by  a  great  nobleman, 
of  whose  subterranean  palace  and  strange  seclu 
sion  I  had  before  heard.  Common  report  at 
tributed  his  unwillingness  to  be  seen  to  a  disfig 
uring  malady  with  which  he  was  said  to  be 
afflicted.  The  story  was  that  he  was  visible 
only  to  his  valet.  But  a  lady  of  quality,  whom 
I  met  in  this  country,  told  me  she  had  seen  him, 
and  observed  nothing  to  justify  it.  These  old 
countries  are  full  of  romances  and  legends  and 
diableries  of  all  sorts,  in  which  truth  and  lies 
are  so  mixed  that  one  does  not  know  what  to 
believe.  What  happens  behind  the  high  walls 
of  the  old  cities  is  as  much  a  secret  as  were  the 
doings  inside  the  prisons  of  the  Inquisition. 

Little   mistakes   sometimes   cause  us  a  deal 


242     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

of  trouble.  This  time  it  was  the  presence  or 
absence  of  a  single  letter  which  led  us  to  fear 
that  an  important  package  destined  to  America 
had  miscarried.  There  were  two  gentlemen  un 
wittingly  involved  in  the  confusion.  On  inquir 
ing  for  the  package  at  Messrs.  Low,  the  publish 
ers,  Mr.  Watts,  to  whom  I  thought  it  had  been 
consigned,  was  summoned.  He  knew  nothing 
about  it,  had  never  heard  of  it,  was  evidently 
utterly  ignorant  of  us  and  our  affairs.  While 
we  were  in  trouble  and  uncertainty,  our  Boston 
friend,  Mr.  James  K.  Osgood,  came  in.  "  Oh," 
said  he,  "  it  is  Mr.  Watt  you  want,  the  agent  of 
a  Boston  firm,"  and  gave  us  the  gentleman's 
address.  I  had  confounded  Mr.  Watt's  name 
with  Mr.  Watts's  name.  "  W'at  's  in  a  name  ?  " 
A  great  deal  sometimes.  I  wonder  if  I  shall  be 
pardoned  for  quoting  six  lines  from  one  of  my 
after-dinner  poems  of  long  ago :  — 

—  One  vague  inflection  spoils  the  whole  with  doubt, 

One  trivial  letter  ruins  all,  left  out ; 

A  knot  can  change  a  felon  into  clay, 

A  not  will  save  him,  spelt  without  the  k  ; 

The  smallest  word  has  some  unguarded  spot, 

And  danger  lurks  in  i  without  a  dot. 


LONDON.  243 

I  should  find  it  hard  to  account  for  myself 
during  our  two  short  stays  in  London  in  the 
month  of  August,  separated  by  the  week  we 
passed  in  Paris.  The  ferment  of  continued  over- 
excitement,  calmed  very  much  by  our  rest  in  the 
various  places  I  have  mentioned,  had  not  yet 
wholly  worked  itself  off.  There  was  some  of 
that  everlasting  shopping  to  be  done.  There 
were  photographs  to  be  taken,  a  call  here  and 
there  to  be  made,  a  stray  visitor  now  and  then, 
a  walk  in  the  morning  to  get  back  the  use  of  the 
limbs  which  had  been  too  little  exercised,  and  a 
drive  every  afternoon  to  one  of  the  parks,  or  the 
Thames  Embankment,  or  other  locality.  After 
all  this,  an  honest  night's  sleep  served  to  round 
out  the  day,  in  which  little  had  been  effected 
besides  making  a  few  purchases,  writing  a  few 
letters,  reading  the  papers,  the  Boston  "  Weekly 
Advertiser  "  among  the  rest,  and  making  ar 
rangements  for  our  passage  homeward. 

The  sights  we  saw  were  looked  upon  for  so 
short  a  time,  most  of  them  so  very  superficially, 
that  I  am  almost  ashamed  to  say  that  I  have 
been  in  the  midst  of  them  and  brought  home  so 
little.  I  remind  myself  of  my  boyish  amusement 


244     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

of  skipping  stones ,  —  throwing  a  flat  stone  so 
that  it  shall  only  touch  the  water,  but  touch  it 
in  half  a  dozen  places  before  it  comes  to  rest  be 
neath  the  smooth  surface.  The  drives  we  took 
showed  us  a  thousand  objects  which  arrested  our 
attention.  Every  street,  every  bridge,  every 
building,  every  monument,  every  strange  vehicle, 
every  exceptional  personage,  was  a  show  which 
stimulated  our  curiosity.  For  we  had  not  as  yet 
changed  our  Boston  eyes  for  London  ones,  and 
very  common  sights  were  spectacular  and  dra 
matic  to  us.  I  remember  that  one  of  our  New 
England  country  boys  exclaimed,  when  he  first 
saw  a  block  of  city  dwellings,  "  Darn  it  all,  who 
ever  see  anything  like  that  'are  ?  Sich  a  lot  o' 
haousen  all  stuck  together !  "  I  must  explain 
that  "  haousen  "  used  in  my  early  days  to  be  as 
common  an  expression  in  speaking  of  houses 
among  our  country-folk  as  its  phonetic  equiva 
lent  ever  was  in  Saxony.  I  felt  not  unlike  that 
country-boy. 

In  thinking  of  how  much  I  missed  seeing,  I 
sometimes  have  said  to  myself,  "  Oh,  if  the  car 
pet  of  the  story  in  the  Arabian  Nights  would 
only  take  me  up  and  carry  me  to  London  for  one 


LONDON.  245 

week,  —  just  one  short  week,  —  setting  me  down 
fresh  from  quiet,  wholesome  living,  in  my  usual 
good  condition,  and  bringing  me  back  at  the 
end  of  it,  what  a  different  account  I  could  give 
of  my  experiences !  But  it  is  just  as  well  as  it 
is.  Younger  eyes  have  studied  and  will  study, 
more  instructed  travellers  have  pictured  and 
will  picture,  the  great  metropolis  from  a  hundred 
different  points  of  view.  No  person  can  be  said 
to  know  London.  The  most  that  any  one  can 
claim  is  that  he  knows  something  of  it.  I  am 
now  just  going  to  leave  it  for  another  great  capi 
tal,  but  in  my  concluding  pages  I  shall  return 
to  Great  Britain,  and  give  some  of  the  general 
impressions  left  by  what  I  saw  and  heard  in  our 
mother  country. 


VII. 

STRAITENED  as  we  were  for  time,  it  was  im 
possible  to  return  home  without  a  glimpse,  at 
least,  of  Paris.  Two  precious  years  of  my  early 
manhood  were  spent  there  under  the  reign  of 
Louis  Philippe,  king  of  the  French,  le  Roi  Cito- 
yen.  I  felt  that  I  must  look  once  more  on  the 
places  I  knew  so  well,  —  once  more  before  shut 
ting  myself  up  in  the  world  of  recollections.  It 
is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  a  lady  can  always 
find  a  little  shopping,  and  generally  a  good  deal 
of  it,  to  do  in  Paris.  So  it  was  not  difficult  to 
persuade  my  daughter  that  a  short  visit  to  that 
city  was  the  next  step  to  be  taken. 

We  left  London  on  the  5th  of  August  to  go 
via  Folkestone  and  Boulogne.  The  passage 
across  the  Channel  was  a  very  smooth  one,  and 
neither  of  us  suffered  any  inconvenience.  Bou 
logne  as  seen  from  the  landing  did  not  show  to 
great  advantage.  I  fell  to  thinking  of  Brum- 
mel,  and  what  a  satisfaction  it  would  have  been 


BO  ULO  ONE.  —  PARIS.  247 

to  treat  him  to  a  good  dinner,  and  set  him  talk 
ing  about  the  days  of  the  Regency.  Boulogne 
was  all  Bruinmel  in  my  associations,  just  as 
Calais  was  all  Sterne.  I  find  everywhere  that 
it  is  a  distinctive  personality  which  makes  me 
want  to  linger  round  a  spot,  more  than  an  im 
portant  historical  event.  There  is  not  much 
worth  remembering  about  Brummel;  but  his 
audacity,  his  starched  neckcloth,  his  assumptions 
and  their  success,  make  him  a  curious  subject 
for  the  student  of  human  nature. 

Leaving  London  at  twenty  minutes  before  ten 
in  the  forenoon,  we  arrived  in  Paris  at  six  in  the 
afternoon.  I  could  not  say  that  the  region  of 
France  through  which  we  passed  was  peculiarly 
attractive.  I  saw  no  fine  trees,  no  pretty  cot 
tages,  like  those  so  common  in  England.  There 
was  little  which  an  artist  would  be  tempted  to 
sketch,  or  a  traveller  by  the  railroad  would  be 
likely  to  remember. 

The  place  where  we  had  engaged  lodgings 
was  Hotel  d'Orient,  in  the  Rue  Daunou.  The 
situation  was  convenient,  very  near  the  Place 
Vendome  and  the  Rue  de  la  Paix.  But  the 
house  was  undergoing  renovations  which  made 


248      OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

it  as  unpresentable  as  a  moulting  fowl.  Scrub 
bing,  painting  of  blinds,  and  other  perturbing 
processes  did  all  they  could  to  make  it  uncom 
fortable.  The  courtyard  was  always  sloppy,  and 
the  whole  condition  of  things  reminded  me  for 
cibly  of  the  state  of  Mr.  Briggs's  household 
while  the  mason  was  carrying  out  the  complex 
operations  which  began  with  the  application  of 
"  a  little  compo."  (I  hope  all  my  readers 
remember  Mr.  Briggs,  whose  adventures  as  told 
by  the  pencil  of  John  Leech  are  not  unworthy 
of  comparison  with  those  of  Mr.  Pickwick  as 
related  by  Dickens.)  Barring  these  unfortu 
nate  conditions,  the  hotel  was  commendable,  and 
when  in  order  would  be  a  desirable  place  of  tem 
porary  residence. 

It  was  the  dead  season  of  Paris,  and  every 
thing  had  the  air  of  suspended  animation.  The 
solitude  of  the  Place  Vendfane  was  something 
oppressive  ;  I  felt,  as  I  trod  its  lonely  sidewalk, 
as  if  I  were  wandering  through  Tadmor  in  the 
Desert.  We  were  indeed  as  remote,  as  un 
friended,  —  I  will  not  say  as  melancholy  or  as 
slow,  —  as  Goldsmith  by  the  side  of  the  lazy 
Scheldt  or  the  wandering  Po.  Not  a  soul  did 


PARIS.  249 

either  of  us  know  in  that  great  city.  Our  most 
intimate  relations  were  with  the  people  of  the 
hotel  and  with  the  drivers  of  the  fiacres.  These 
last  were  a  singular  looking  race  of  beings. 
Many  of  them  had  a  dull  red  complexion, 
almost  brick  color,  which  must  have  some 
general  cause.  I  questioned  whether  the  red 
wine  could  have  something  to  do  with  it.  They 
wore  glazed  hats,  and  drove  shabby  vehicles  for 
the  most  part ;  their  horses  would  not  compare 
with  those  of  the  London  hansom  drivers,  and 
they  themselves  were  not  generally  inviting  in 
aspect,  though  we  met  with  no  incivility  from 
any  of  them.  One,  I  remember,  was  very 
voluble,  and  over-explained  everything,  so  that 
we  became  afraid  to  ask  him  a  question.  They 
were  fellow-creatures  with  whom  one  did  not 
naturally  enter  into  active  sympathy,  and  the 
principal  point  of  interest  about  the  fiacre  and 
its  arrangements  was  whether  the  horse  was 
fondest  of  trotting  or  of  walking.  In  one  of 
our  drives  we  made  it  a  point  to  call  upon  our 
Minister,  Mr.  McLane,  but  he  was  out  of  town. 
We  did  not  bring  a  single  letter,  but  set  off  ex 
actly  as  if  we  were  on  a  picnic. 


250     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

While  A and  her  attendant  went  about 

making  their  purchases,  I  devoted  myself  to 
the  sacred  and  pleasing  task  of  reviving  old 
memories.  One  of  the  first  places  I  visited 
was  the  house  I  lived  in  as  a  student,  which  in 
my  English  friend's  French  was  designated  as 
"Nooinero  sankont  sank  Roo  Monshure  ler 
Pranse."  I  had  been  told  that  the  whole  region 
thereabout  had  been  transformed  by  the  creation 
of  a  new  boulevard.  I  did  not  find  it  so.  There 
was  the  house,  the  lower  part  turned  into  a 
shop,  but  there  were  the  windows  out  of  which 
I  used  to  look  along  the  Rue  Vaugirard,  —  au 
troisieme  the  first  year,  au  second  the  second 
year.  Why  should  I  go  mousing  about  the  place  ? 
What  would  the  shopkeeper  know  about  M. 
Bertrand,  my  landlord  of  half  a  century  ago ; 
or  his  first  wife,  to  whose  funeral  1  went ;  or  his 
second,  to  whose  bridal  I  was  bidden  ? 

I  ought  next  to  have  gone  to  the  hospital 
La  Pitie\  where  I  passed  much  of  my  time 
during  those  two  years.  But  the  people  there 
would  not  know  me,  and  my  old  master's  name, 
Louis,  is  but  a  dim  legend  in  the  wards  where 
he  used  to  teach  his  faithful  band  of  almost 


PARIS.  — ST.  ETIENNE  DU  MONT.      251 

worshipping  students.  Besides,  I  have  not  been 
among  hospital  beds  for  many  a  year,  and  my 
sensibilities  are  almost  as  impressible  as  they 
were  before  daily  habit  had  rendered  them  com 
paratively  callous. 

How  strange  it  is  to  look  down  on  one's  ven 
erated  teachers,  after  climbing  with  the  world's 
progress  half  a  century  above  the  level  where  we 
left  them !  The  stethoscope  was  almost  a  nov 
elty  in  those  days.  The  microscope  was  never 
mentioned  by  any  clinical  instructor  I  listened 
to  while  a  medical  student.  Nous  avons  change 
tout  cela  is  true  of  every  generation  in  medi 
cine, —  changed  oftentimes  by  improvement, 
sometimes  by  fashion  or  the  pendulum-swing 
from  one  extreme  to  another. 

On  my  way  back  from  the  hospital  I  used 
to  stop  at  the  beautiful  little  church  St.  Etienne 
du  Mont,  and  that  was  one  of  the  first  places  to 
which  I  drove  after  looking  at  my  student-quar 
ters.  All  was  just  as  of  old.  The  tapers  were 
burning  about  the  tomb  of  St.  Geuevieve. 
Samson,  with  the  jawbone  of  the  ass,  still 
crouched  and  sweated,  or  looked  as  if  he  did, 
under  the  weight  of  the  pulpit.  One  might 


252  OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

question  how  well  the  preacher  in  the  pulpit 
liked  the  suggestion  of  the  figure  beneath  it. 
The  sculptured  screen  and  gallery,  the  exquisite 
spiral  stairways,  the  carved  figures  about  the 
organ,  the  tablets  on  the  walls,  —  one  in  partic 
ular  relating  the  fall  of  two  young  girls  from 
the  gallery,  and  their  miraculous  protection  from 
injury, — all  these  images  found  their  counter 
part  in  my  memory.  I  did  not  remember  how 
very  beautiful  is  the  stained  glass  in  the  char- 
niers,  which  must  not  be  overlooked  by  vis 
itors. 

It  is  not  far  from  St.  Etienne  du  Mont  to  the 
Pantheon.  I  cannot  say  that  there  is  any  odor 
of  sanctity  about  this  great  temple,  which  has 
been  consecrated,  if  I  remember  correctly,  and, 
I  will  not  say  desecrated,  but  secularized  from 
time  to  time,  according  to  the  party  which  hap 
pened  to  be  uppermost.  I  confess  that  I  did 
not  think  of  it  chiefly  as  a  sacred  edifice,  or  as 
the  resting-place,  more  or  less  secure,  of  the 
"grands  hommes "  to  whom  it  is  dedicated.  I 
was  thinking  much  more  of  Foucault's  grand 
experiment,  one  of  the  most  sublime  visible 
demonstrations  of  a  great  physical  fact  in  the 


PARIS.  — THE  PANTHEON,  253 

records  of  science.  The  reader  may  not  happen 
to  remember  it,  and  will  like,  perhaps,  to  be 
reminded  of  it.  Foucault  took  advantage  of 
the  height  of  the  dome,  nearly  three  hundred 
feet,  and  had  a  heavy  weight  suspended  by  a 
wire  from  its  loftiest  point,  forming  an  immense 
pendulum,  —  the  longest,  I  suppose,  ever  con 
structed.  Now  a  moving  body  tends  to  keep  its 
original  plane  of  movement,  and  so  the  great 
pendulum,  being  set  swinging  north  and  south, 
tended  to  keep  on  in  the  same  direction.  But 
the  earth  was  moving  under  it,  and  as  it  rolled 
from  west  to  east  the  plane  running  through  the 
north  and  south  poles  was  every  instant  chang 
ing.  Thus  the  pendulum  appeared  to  change 
its  direction,  and  its  deviation  was  shown  on  a 
graduated  arc,  or  by  the  marks  it  left  in  a  little 
heap  of  sand  which  it  touched  as  it  swung.  This 
experiment  on  the  great  scale  has  since  been 
repeated  on  the  small  scale  by  the  aid  of  other 
contrivances. 

My  thoughts  wandered  back,  naturally  enough, 
to  Galileo  in  the  Cathedral  at  Pisa.  It  was  the 
swinging  of  the  suspended  lamp  in  that  edifice 
which  set  his  mind  working  on  the  laws  which 


254     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

govern  the  action  of  the  pendulum.  While  he 
was  meditating  on  this  physical  problem,  the 
priest  may  have  been  holding  forth  on  the  dan 
gers  of  meddling  with  matters  settled  by  Holy 
Church,  who  stood  ready  to  enforce  her  edicts 
by  the  logic  of  the  rack  and  the  fagot.  An 
inference  from  the  above  remarks  is  that  what 
one  brings  from  a  church  depends  very  much  on 
what  he  carries  into  it. 

The  next  place  to  visit  could  be  no  other  than 
the  Cafe  Procope.  This  famous  resort  is  the 
most  ancient  and  the  most  celebrated  of  all  the 
Parisian  cafes.  Voltaire,  the  poet  J.  B.  Rous 
seau,  Marmontel,  Sainte  Foix,  Saurin,  were 
among  its  frequenters  in  the  eighteenth  century. 
It  stands  in  the  Rue  des  Fosses-Saint-Germain, 
now  Rue  de  1'Ancienne  Comedie.  Several 
American  students,  Bostonians  and  Philadelphi- 
ans,  myself  among  the  number,  used  to  break 
fast  at  this  cafe*  every  morning.  I  have  no 
doubt  that  I  met  various  celebrities  there,  but  I 
recall  only  one  name  which  is  likely  to  be  known 
to  most  or  many  of  my  readers.  A  delicate- 
looking  man,  seated  at  one  of  the  tables,  was 
pointed  out  to  me  as  Jouffroy.  If  I  had  known 


PARIS.— THE  CAFE  PROCOPE.          255 

as  much  about  him  as  I  learned  afterwards,  I 
should  have  looked  at  him  with  more  interest. 
He  had  one  of  those  imaginative  natures,  tinged 
by  constitutional  melancholy  and  saddened  by 
ill  health,  which  belong  to  a  certain  class  of 
poets  and  sentimental  writers,  of  which  Pascal 
is  a  good  example,  and  Cowper  another.  The 
world  must  have  seemed  very  cruel  to  him.  I 
remember  that  when  he  was  a  candidate  for  the 
Assembly,  one  of  the  popular  cries,  as  reported 
by  the  newspapers  of  the  time,  was  A  bas  le 
poitrinaire !  His  malady  soon  laid  him  low 
enough,  for  he  died  in  1842,  at  the  age  of  forty- 
six.  I  must  have  been  very  much  taken  up  with 
my  medical  studies  to  have  neglected  my  oppor 
tunity  of  seeing  the  great  statesmen,  authors, 
artists,  orators,  and  men  of  science  outside  of 
the  medical  profession.  Poisson,  Arago,  and 
Jouffroy  are  all  I  can  distinctly  recall,  among 
the  Frenchmen  of  eminence  whom  I  had  all 
around  me. 

The  Cafe  Procope  has  been  much  altered  and 
improved,  and  bears  an  inscription  telling  the 
date  of  its  establishment,  which  was  in  the  year 
1689.  I  entered  the  cafe\  which  was  nearly  or 


256     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

quite  empty,  the  usual  breakfast  hour  being 
past. 

Gargon  !     Une  tasse  de  cofS. 

If  there  is  a  river  of  mneme  as  a  counterpart 
of  the  river  lethe,  my  cup  of  coffee  must  have 
got  its  water  from  that  stream  of  memory.  If  I 
could  borrow  that  eloquence  of  Jouffroy  which 
made  his  hearers  turn  pale,  I  might  bring  up 
before  my  readers  a  long  array  of  pallid  ghosts, 
whom  these  walls  knew  well  in  their  earthly 
habiliments.  Only  a  single  one  of  those  I  met 
here  still  survives.  The  rest  are  mostly  well- 
nigh  forgotten  by  all  but  a  few  friends,  or  re 
membered  chiefly  in  their  children  and  grand 
children. 

"  How  much  ?  "  I  said  to  the  gar  con  in  his 
native  tongue,  or  what  I  supposed  to  be  that 
language.  "  Cinq  sows,"  was  his  answer.  By 
the  laws  of  sentiment,  I  ought  to  have  made 
the  ignoble  sum  five  francs,  at  least.  But  if  I 
had  done  so,  the  waiter  would  undoubtedly  have 
thought  that  I  had  just  come  from  Charenton. 
Besides,  why  should  I  violate  the  simple  habits 
and  traditions  of  the  place,  where  generation 
after  generation  of  poor  students  and  threadbare 


PARIS.  — THE  CAFE  PROCOPE.          257 

Bohemians  had  taken  their  morning  coffee  and 
pocketed  their  two  lumps  of  sugar?  It  was 
with  a  feeling  of  virile  sanity  and  Roman  self- 
conquest  that  I  paid  my  five  sous,  with  the  small 
additional  fraction  which  I  supposed  the  waiter 
to  expect,  and  no  more. 

So  I  passed  for  the  last  time  over  the  thresh 
old  of  the  Cafe*  Procope,  where  Voltaire  had 
matured  his  plays  and  Piron  sharpened  his  epi 
grams  ;  where  Jouffroy  had  battled  with  his 
doubts  and  fears ;  where,  since  their  time,  — 
since  my  days  of  Parisian  life,  —  the  terrible 
storming  youth,  afterwards  renowned  as  Le'on 
Michel  Gambetta,  had  startled  the  quiet  guests 
with  his  noisy  eloquence,  till  the  old  habitues 
spilled  their  coffee,  and  the  red-capped  students 
said  to  each  other,  "  II  ira  loin,  ce  gail- 
lard-ld.'" 

But  what  to  me  were  these  shadowy  figures 
by  the  side  of  the  group  of  my  early  friends  and 
companions,  that  came  up  before  me  in  all  the 
freshness  of  their  young  manhood  ?  The  mem 
ory  of  them  recalls  my  own  youthful  days,  and 
I  need  not  go  to  Florida  to  bathe  in  the  foun 
tain  of  Ponce  de  Leon. 


258     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

I  have  sometimes  thought  that  I  love  so  well 
the  accidents  of  this  temporary  terrestrial  resi 
dence,  its  endeared  localities,  its  precious  affec 
tions,  its  pleasing  variety  of  occupation,  its  al 
ternations  of  excited  and  gratified  curiosity,  and 
whatever  else  comes  nearest  to  the  longings  of 
the  natural  man,  that  I  might  be  wickedly 
homesick  in  a  far-off  spiritual  realm  where  such 
toys  are  done  with.  But  there  is  a  pretty  lesson 
which  I  have  often  meditated,  taught,  not  this 
time  by  the  lilies  of  the  field,  but  by  the  fruits 
of  the  garden.  When,  in  the  June  honeymoon 
of  the  seasons,  the  strawberry  shows  itself  among 
the  bridal  gifts,  many  of  us  exclaim  for  the  hun 
dredth  time  with  Dr.  Boteler,  "  Doubtless  God 
could  have  made  a  better  berry,  but  doubtless 
God  never  did."  Nature,  who  is  God's  hand 
maid,  does  not  attempt  a  rival  berry.  But  by 
and  by  a  little  woolly  knob,  which  looked  and 
saw  with  wonder  the  strawberry  reddening,  and 
perceived  the  fragrance  it  diffused  all  around, 
begins  to  fill  out,  and  grow  soft  and  pulpy  and 
sweet ;  and  at  last  a  glow  comes  to  its  cheek, 
and  we  say  the  peach  is  ripening.  When  Na 
ture  has  done  with  it,  and  delivers  it  to  us  in 


PAWS.-  GALLERY  OF  THE  LOUVRE.    259 

its  perfection,  we  forget  all  tho  lesser  frtfits 
which  have  gone  before  it.  If  the  flavor  of 
the  peach  and  the  fragrance  of  the  rose  are 
not  found  in  some  fruit  and  flower  which  grow 
by  the  side  of  the  river  of  life,  an  earth-born 
spirit  might  be  forgiven  for  missing  them.  The 
strawberry  and  the  pink  are  very  delightful,  but 
we  could  be  happy  without  them. 

So,  too,  we  may  hope  that  when  the  fruits  of 
our  brief  early  season  of  three  or  four  score 
years  have  given  us  all  they  can  impart  for  our 
happiness  ;  when  "  the  love  of  little  maids  and 
berries,"  and  all  other  earthly  prettinesses,  shall 
"  soar  and  sing,"  as  Mr.  Emerson  sweetly  re 
minds  us  that  they  all  must,  we  may  hope  that 
the  abiding  felicities  of  our  later  life-season  may 
far  more  than  compensate  us  for  all  that  have 
taken  their  flight. 


I  looked  forward  Tvith  the  greatest  interest  to 
revisiting  the  Gallery  of  the  Louvre,  accompanied 
by  my  long-treasured  recollections.  I  retained 
a  vivid  remembrance  of  many  pictures,  which 
had  been  kept  bright  by  seeing  great  numbers 
of  reproductions  of  them  in  photographs  and  en 
graving*  . 


260     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

The  first  thing  which  struck  me  was  that  the 
pictures  had  been  rearranged  in  such  a  way  that 
I  could  find  nothing  in  the  place  where  I  looked 
for  it.  But  when  I  found  them,  they  greeted 
me,  so  1  fancied,  like  old  acquaintances.  The 
meek-looking  "Belle  Jardiniere"  was  as  lamb 
like  as  ever  ;  the  pearly  nymph  of  Correggio  in 
vited  the  stranger's  eye  as  frankly  as  of  old ; 
Titian's  young  man  with  the  glove  was  the  calm, 
self-contained  gentleman  I  used  to  admire  ;  the 
splashy  Rubenses,  the  pallid  Guidos,  the  sunlit 
Claudes,  the  shadowy  Poussins,  the  moonlit 
Girardets,  Gericault's  terrible  shipwreck  of  the 
Medusa,  the  exquisite  home  pictures  of  Gerard 
Douw  and  Terburg,  —  all  these  and  many  more 
have  always  been  on  exhibition  in  my  ideal  gal 
lery,  and  I  only  mention  them  as  the  first  that 
happen  to  suggest  themselves. 

The  Museum  of  the  Hotel  Cluny  is  a  curious 
receptacle  of  antiquities,  many  of  which  I  looked 
at  with  interest ;  but  they  made  no  lasting  im 
pression,  and  have  gone  into  the  lumber-room  of 
memory,  from  which  accident  may,  from  time  to 
time,  drag  out  some  few  of  them. 

After  the  poor  unsatisfactory  towers  of  West- 


PARIS.  —  M.  PASTEUR.  261 

minster  Abbey,  the  two  massive,  noble,  truly 
majestic  towers  of  Notre  Dame  strike  the  travel 
ler  as  a  crushing  contrast.  It  is  not  hard  to  see 
that  one  of  these  grand  towers  is  somewhat 
larger  than  the  other,  but  the  difference  does  not 
interfere  with  the  effect  of  the  imposing  front  of 
the  cathedral. 

I  was  much  pleased  to  find  that  I  could  have 
entrance  to  the  Sainte  Chapelle,  which  was  used, 
at  the  time  of  my  earlier  visit,  as  a  storehouse 
of  judicial  archives,  of  which  there  was  a  vast 
accumulation. 

With  the  exception  of  my  call  at  the  office  of 
the  American  Legation,  I  made  but  a  single 
visit  to  any  person  in  Paris.  That  person  was 
M.  Pasteur.  I  might  have  carried  a  letter  to 
him,  for  my  friend  Mrs.  Priestley  is  well  ac 
quainted  with  him,  but  I  had  not  thought  of  ask 
ing  for  one.  So  I  presented  myself  at  his  head 
quarters,  and  was  admitted  into  a  courtyard, 
where  a  multitude  of  his  patients  were  gathered. 
They  were  of  various  ages  and  of  many  different 
nationalities,  every  one  of  them  with  the  vague 
terror  hanging  over  him  or  her.  Yet  the  young 
people  seemed  to  be  cheerful  enough,  and  very 


262      OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

much  like  scholars  out  of  school.  I  sent  my 
card  in  to  M.  Pasteur,  who  was  busily  engaged 
in  writing,  with  his  clerks  or  students  about 
him,  and  presently  he  came  out  and  greeted  me. 
I  told  him  I  was  an  American  physician,  who 
wished  to  look  in  his  face  and  take  his  hand,  — 
nothing  more.  I  looked  in  his  face,  which  was 
that  of  a  thoughtful,  hard-worked  student,  a  lit 
tle  past  the  grand  climacteric,  —  he  was  born  in 
1822.  I  took  his  hand,  which  has  performed 
some  of  the  most  delicate  and  daring  experi 
ments  ever  ventured  upon,  with  results  of  almost 
incalculable  benefit  to  human  industries,  and  the 
promise  of  triumph  in  the  treatment  of  human 
disease  which  prophecy  would  not  have  dared  to 
anticipate.  I  will  not  say  that  I  have  a  full  be 
lief  that  hydrophobia,  —  in  some  respects  the 
most  terrible  of  all  diseases,  —  is  to  be  extirpated 
or  rendered  tractable  by  his  method  of  treat 
ment.  But  of  his  inventive  originality,  his  un 
conquerable  perseverance,  his  devotion  to  the 
good  of  mankind,  there  can  be  no  question.  I 
look  upon  him  as  one  of  the  greatest  experi 
menters  that  ever  lived,  one  of  the  truest  bene 
factors  of  his  race  ;  and  if  I  made  my  due  obei- 


PARIS.  263 

sance  before  princes,  I  felt  far  more  humble  in 
the  presence  of  this  great  explorer,  to  whom 
the  God  of  Nature  has  entrusted  some  of  her 
most  precious  secrets. 

There  used  to  be,  —  I  can  hardly  think  it  still 
exists,  —  a  class  of  persons  who  prided  themselves 
on  their  disbelief  in  the  reality  of  any  such  dis 
tinct  disease  as  hydrophobia.  I  never  thought 
it  worth  while  to  argue  with  them,  for  I  have 
noticed  that  this  disbelief  is  only  a  special  mani 
festation  of  a  particular  habit  of  mind.  Its  ad 
vocates  will  be  found,  I  think,  most  frequently 
among  "  the  long-haired  men  and  the  short- 
haired  women."  Many  of  them  dispute  the  ef 
ficacy  of  vaccination.  Some  are  disciples  of 
llulmemaim,  some  have  full  faith  in  the  mind- 
cure,  some  attend  the  seances  where  flowers 
(bought  from  the  nearest  florist)  are  material 
ized,  and  some  invest  their  money  in  Mrs.  Howe's 
Bank  of  Benevolence.  Their  tendency  is  to  re 
ject  the  truth  which  is  generally  accepted,  and  to 
accept  the  improbable ;  if  the  impossible  offers 
itself,  they  deny  the  existence  of  the  impossible. 
Argument  with  this  class  of  minds  is  a  lever 
without  a  fulcrum. 


264     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

I  was  glad  to  leave  that  company  of  patients, 
still  uncertain  of  their  fate,  —  hoping,  yet  pur 
sued  by  their  terror:  peasants  bitten  by  mad 
wolves  in  Siberia ;  women  snapped  at  by  their 
sulking  lap-dogs  in  London ;  children  from  over 
the  water  who  had  been  turned  upon  by  the  irri 
table  Skye  terrier ;  innocent  victims  torn  by  ill- 
conditioned  curs  at  the  doors  of  the  friends  they 
were  meaning  to  visit,  —  all  haunted  by  the 
same  ghastly  fear,  all  starting  from  sleep  in  the 
same  nightmare. 

If  canine  rabies  is  a  fearful  subject  to  contem 
plate,  there  is  a  sadder  and  deeper  significance 
in  rabies  humana  ;  in  that  awful  madness  of  the 
human  race  which  is  marked  by  a  thirst  for 
blood  and  a  rage  for  destruction.  The  remem 
brance  of  such  a  distemper  which  has  attacked 
mankind,  especially  mankind  of  the  Parisian 
sub-species,  came  over  me  very  strongly  when 
I  first  revisited  the  Place  Yendome.  I  should 
have  supposed  that  the  last  object  upon  which 
Parisians  would,  in  their  wildest  frenzy,  have 
laid  violent  hands  would  have  been  the  column 
with  the  figure  of  Napoleon  at  its  summit.  We 
all  know  what  happened  in  1871.  An  artist, 


J'AKIS.  265 

we  should  have  thought,  would  be  the  last  per 
son  to  lead  the  iconoclasts  in  such  an  outrage. 
But  M.  Courbet  has  attained  an  immortality  like 
that  of  Erostratus  by  the  part  he  took  in  pulling 
down  the  column.  It  was  restored  in  1874.  I 
do  not  question  that  the  work  of  restoration  was 
well  done,  but  my  eyes  insisted  on  finding  a 
fault  in  some  of  its  lines  which  was  probably  in 
their  own  refracting  media.  Fifty  years  before 
an  artist  helped  to  overthrow  the  monument  to 
the  Emperor,  a  poet  had  apostrophized  him  in 
the  bitterest  satire  since  the  days  of  Juvenal :  — 

"  Encor  Napoleon  !  encor  sa  grande  image  ! 

Ah  !  que  ce  rude  et  dur  guerrier 
Nous  a  coute*  de  sang  et  de  pleura  et  d 'outrage 
Pour  quelques  rameaux  de  laurier ! 

'*  Eh  bien  !  dans  tous  ces  jours  d'abaissement,  de  peine, 

Pour  tous  ces  outrages  sans  nom, 
Je  n'ai  jamais  charge'  qu'un  etre  de  ma  haine,  .  .  . 
Sois  maudit,  O  Napoleon  !  " 

After  looking  at  the  column  of  the  Place  Ven- 
d8me  and  recalling  these  lines  of  Barbier,  I  was 
ready  for  a  visit  to  the  tomb  of  Napoleon.  The 
poet's  curse  had  helped  me  to  explain  the  paint 
er's  frenzy  against  the  bronze  record  of  his 


266     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

achievements  and  the  image  at  its  summit.  But 
I  forgot  them  both  as  I  stood  under  the  dome 
of  the  Invalides,  and  looked  upon  the  massive 
receptacle  which  holds  the  dust  of  the  imperial 
exile.  Two  things,  at  least,  Napoleon  accom 
plished  :  he  opened  the  way  for  ability  of  all 
kinds,  and  he  dealt  the  death-blow  to  the  divine 
right  of  kings  and  all  the  abuses  which  clung  to 
that  superstition.  If  I  brought  nothing  else 
away  from  my  visit  to  his  mausoleum,  I  left  it 
impressed  with  what  a  man  can  be  when  fully 
equipped  by  nature,  and  placed  in  circumstances 
where  his  forces  can  have  full  play.  "  How  in 
finite  in  faculty  !  ...  in  apprehension  how  like 
a  god  !  "  Such  were  my  reflections  ;  very  much, 
I  suppose,  like  those  of  the  average  visitor,  and 
too  obviously  having  nothing  to  require  contra 
diction  or  comment. 

Paris  as  seen  by  the  morning  sun  of  three  or 
four  and  twenty  and  Paris  in  the  twilight  of  the 
superfluous  decade  cannot  be  expected  to  look 
exactly  alike.  I  well  remember  my  first  break 
fast  at  a  Parisian  caf£  in  the  spring  of  1833. 
It  was  in  the  Place  de  la  Bourse,  on  a  beautiful 
sunshiny  morning.  The  coffee  was  nectar,  the 


PARIS.  267 

flute  was  ambrosia,  the  brioche  was  more  than 
good  enough  for  the  Olympians.  Such  an  ex 
perience  could  not  repeat  itself  fifty  years  later. 
The  first  restaurant  at  which  we  dined  was  in 
the  Palais  Royal.  The  place  was  hot  enough  to 
cook  an  egg.  Nothing  was  very  excellent  nor 
very  bad  ;  the  wine  was  not  so  good  as  they  gave 
us  at  our  hotel  in  London ;  the  enchanter  had 
not  waved  his  wand  over  our  repast,  as  he  did 
over  my  earlier  one  in  the  Place  de  la  Bourse, 
and  I  had  not  the  slightest  desire  to  pay  the 
gar£on  thrice  his  fee  on  the  score  of  cherished 
associations.  We  dined  at  our  hotel  on  some 
days,  at  different  restaurants  on  others.  One 
day  we  dined,  and  dined  well,  at  the  old  Cafe* 
Anglais,  famous  in  my  earlier  times  for  its 
turbot.  Another  day  we  took  our  dinner  at  a 
very  celebrated  restaurant  on  the  boulevard. 
One  sauce  which  was  served  us  was  a  gastro 
nomic  symphony,  the  harmonies  of  which  were 
new  to  me  and  pleasing.  But  I  remember  little 
else  of  superior  excellence.  The  garcon  pock 
eted  the  franc  I  gave  him  with  the  air  of  hav 
ing  expected  a  napoleon. 

Into   the   mysteries  of   a  lady's  shopping  in 


268     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

Paris  I  would  not  venture  to  inquire.  But 

A and  I  strolled  together  through  the  Palais 

Royal  in  the  evening,  and  amused  ourselves  by 
staring  at  the  glittering  windows  without  being 
severely  tempted.  Bond  Street  had  exhausted 
our  susceptibility  to  the  shop-window  seduction, 
and  the  napoleons  did  not  burn  in  the  pockets 
where  the  sovereigns  had  had  time  to  cool. 

Nothing  looked  more  nearly  the  same  as  of 
old  than  the  bridges.  The  Pont  Neuf  did  not 
seem  to  me  altered,  though  we  had  read  in  the 
papers  that  it  was  in  ruins  or  seriously  injured 
in  consequence  of  a  great  flood.  The  statues 
had  been  removed  from  the  Pont  Eoyal,  one  or 
two  new  bridges  had  been  built,  but  all  was  nat 
ural  enough,  and  I  was  tempted  to  look  for  the 
old  woman,  at  the  end  of  the  Pont  des  Arts, 
who  used  to  sell  me  a  bunch  of  violets,  for  two 
or  three  sous,  —  such  as  would  cost  me  a  quarter 
of  a  dollar  in  Boston.  I  did  not  see  the  three 
objects  which  a  popular  saying  alleges  are  al 
ways  to  be  met  on  the  Pont  Neuf :  a  priest,  a 
soldier,  and  a  white  horse. 

The  weather  was  hot ;  we  were  tired,  and 
did  not  care  to  go  to  the  theatres,  if  any  of 


PARIS.  — THE  B02S  DE  BOULOGNE.     2o9 

them  were  open.  The  pleasantest  hours  were 
those  of  our  at'u-rnooii  drive  in  the  Champs 
Elysdes  and  the  Bois  de  Boulogne,  —  or  "  the 
Boulogne  Woods,"  as  our  American  tailor's  wife 
of  the  old  time  called  the  favorite  place  for 
driving.  In  passing  the  Place  de  la  Concorde, 
two  objects  in  especial  attracted  my  attention,  — 
the  obelisk,  which  was  lying,  when  I  left  it,  in 
the  great  boat  which  brought  it  from  the  Nile, 
and  the  statue  of  Strasbourg,  all  covered  with 
wreaths  and  flags.  How  like  children  these 
Parisians  do  act ;  crying  "A  Berlin,  &  Berlin  !  " 
and  when  Berlin  comes  to  Paris,  and  Stras 
bourg  goes  back  to  her  old  proprietors,  instead 
of  taking  it  quietly,  making  all  this  parade  of 
patriotic  symbols,  the  display  of  which  belongs 
to  victory  rather  than  to  defeat ! 

I  was  surprised  to  find  the  trees  in  the  Bois 
de  Boulogne  so  well  grown  :  I  had  an  idea  that 
they  had  been  largely  sacrificed  in  the  time  of 
the  siege.  Among  the  objects  which  deserve 
special  mention  are  the  shrieking  parrots  and 
other  birds  and  the  yelping  dogs  in  the  grounds 
of  the  Society  of  Acclimatization,  —  out  of  the 
range  of  which  the  visitor  will  be  glad  to  get  as 


270     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

soon  as  possible.  A  fountain  visited  by  newly 
married  couples  and  their  friends,  with  a  res 
taurant  near  by,  where  the  bridal  party  drink 
the  health  of  the  newly  married  pair,  was  an  ob 
ject  of  curiosity.  An  unsteadiness  of  gait  was 
obvious  in  some  of  the  feasters.  At  one  point 
in  the  middle  of  the  road  a  inaBnad  was  flinging 
her  arms  about  and  shrieking  as  if  she  were  just 
escaped  from  a  madhouse.  But  the  drive  in 
the  Bois  was  what  made  Paris  tolerable.  There 
were  few  fine  equipages,  and  few  distinguished- 
looking  people  in  the  carriages,  but  there  were 
quiet  groups  by  the  wayside,  seeming  happy 
enough ;  and  now  and  then  a  pretty  face  or  a 
wonderful  bonnet  gave  variety  to  the  somewhat 
bourgeois  character  of  the  procession  of  fiacres. 
I  suppose  I  ought  to  form  no  opinion  at  all 
about  the  aspect  of  Paris,  any  more  than  I 
should  of  an  oyster  in  a  month  without  an  r  in 
it.  We  were  neither  of  us  in  the  best  mood  for 
sight-seeing,  and  Paris  was  not  sitting  up  for 
company  ;  in  fact,  she  was  "  not  at  home."  Re 
membering  all  this,  I  must  say  that  the  whole 
appearance  of  the  city  was  dull  and  dreary. 
London  out  of  season  seemed  still  full  of  life ; 


/•A/tis.  271 

Paris  out  of  season  looked  vacuous  and  torpid. 
The  recollection  of  the  sorrow,  the  humiliation, 
the  shaine,  and  the  agony  she  had  passed 
through  since  I  left  her  picking  her  way  on  the 
arm  of  the  Citizen  King,  with  his  old  riflard 
over  her,  rose  before  me  sadly,  ominously,  as  I 
looked  upon  the  high  board  fence  which  sur 
rounded  the  ruins  of  the  Tuileries.  I  can  un 
derstand  the  impulse  which  led  the  red  caps  to 
make  a  wreck  of  this  grand  old  historical  build 
ing.  "  Pull  down  the  nest,"  they  said,  "  and 
the  birds  will  not  come  back."  But  I  shudder 
when  I  think  what  "  the  red  fool-fury  of  the 
Seine  "  has  done  and  is  believed  capable  of  do 
ing.  I  think  nothing  has  so  profoundly  im 
pressed  me  as  the  story  of  the  precautions  taken 
to  preserve  the  Venus  of  Milo  from  the  brutal 
hands  of  the  mob.  A  little  more  violent  access 
of  fury,  a  little  more  fiery  declamation,  a  few 
more  bottles  of  vin  bleu,  and  the  Gallery  of  the 
Louvre,  with  all  its  treasures  of  art,  compared 
with  which  the  crown  jewels  just  sold  are 
but  pretty  pebbles,  the  market  price  of  which 
fairly  enough  expresses  their  value,  —  much 
more,  rather,  than  their  true  value,  —  that  noble 


272     OUR   HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

gallery,  with  all  its  masterpieces  from  the  hands 
of  Greek  sculptors  and  Italian  painters,  would 
have  been  changed  in  a  single  night  into  a  heap  of 
blackened  stones  and  a  pile  of  smoking  cinders. 
I  love  to  think  that  now  that  the  people  have, 
or  at  least  think  they  have,  the  power  in  their 
own  hands,  they  will  outgrow  this  form  of  mad 
ness,  which  is  almost  entitled  to  the  name  of  a 
Parisian  endemic.  Everything  looked  peaceable 
and  stupid  enough  during  the  week  I  passed  in 
Paris.  But  among  all  the  fossils  which  Cuvier 
found  in  the  Parisian  basin,  nothing  was  more 
monstrous  than  the  poissardes  of  the  old  Revo 
lution,  or  the  petroleuses  of  the  recent  Com 
mune,  and  I  fear  that  the  breed  is  not  extinct. 
An  American  comes  to  like  Paris  as  warmly  as 
he  comes  to  love  England,  after  living  in  it  long 
enough  to  become  accustomed  to  its  ways,  and 
I,  like  the  rest  of  my  countrymen  who  remem 
ber  that  France  was  our  friend  in  the  hour  of 
need,  who  remember  all  the  privileges  and  en 
joyments  she  has  freely  offered  us,  who  feel  that 
as  a  sister  republic  her  destinies  are  of  the 
deepest  interest  to  us,  can  have  no  other  wish 
than  for  her  continued  safety,  order,  and  pros 
perity. 


LONDON.  273 

We  returned  to  London  on  the  13th  of  Au 
gust  by  the  same  route  we  had  followed  in  go 
ing  from  London  to  Paris.  Our  passage  was 
rough,  as  compared  to  the  former  one,  and  some 
of  the  passengers  were  seasick.  We  were  both 
fortunate  enough  to  escape  that  trial  of  comfort 
and  self-respect. 

I  can  hardly  separate  the  story  of  the  follow 
ing  week  from  that  of  the  one  before  we  went 
to  Paris.  We  did  a  little  more  shopping  and 
saw  a  few  more  sights.  I  hope  that  no  reader 
of  mine  would  suppose  that  I  would  leave  Lon 
don  without  seeing  Madame  Tussaud's  exhibi 
tion.  Our  afternoon  drives  made  us  familiar 
with  many  objects  which  I  always  looked  upon 
with  pleasure.  There  was  the  obelisk,  brought 
from  Egypt  at  the  expense  of  a  distinguished 
and  successful  medical  practitioner,  Sir  Erasmus 
Wilson,  the  eminent  dermatologist  and  author 
of  a  manual  of  anatomy  which  for  many  years 
was  my  favorite  text-book.  There  was  "The 
Monument,"  which  characterizes  itself  by  having 
no  prefix  to  its  generic  name.  I  enjoyed  look 
ing  at  and  driving  round  it,  and  thinking  over 
IVpys's  lively  account  of  the  Great  Fire,  and 


274     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

speculating  as  to  where  Pudding  Lane  and  Pie 
Corner  stood,  and  recalling  Pope's  lines  which 
I  used  to  read  at  school,  wondering  what  was 
the  meaning  of  the  second  one  :  — 

"  Where  London's  column,  pointing  to  the  skies 
Like  a  tall  bully,  lifts  its  head  and  lies." 

The  week  passed  away  rapidly  enough,  and 
we  made  ready  for  our  departure.  It  was  no 
easy  matter  to  get  a  passage  home,  but  we  had 
at  last  settled  it  that  we  would  return  in  the 
same  vessel  in  which  we  had  at  first  engaged 
our  passage  to  Liverpool,  the  Catalonia.  But 
we  were  fortunate  enough  to  have  found  an 
active  and  efficient  friend  in  our  townsman,  Mr. 
Montgomery  Sears,  who  procured  staterooms 
for  us  in  a  much  swifter  vessel,  to  sail  on  the 
21st  for  New  York,  the  Aurania. 

Our  last  visitor  in  London  was  the  faithful 
friend  who  had  been  the  first  to  welcome  us, 
Lady  Harcourt,  in  whose  kind  attentions  I  felt 
the  warmth  of  my  old  friendship  with  her  ad 
mired  and  honored  father  and  her  greatly  be 
loved  mother.  I  had  recently  visited  their  place 
of  rest  in  the  Kensal  Green  Cemetery,  recalling 
with  tenderest  emotions  the  many  years  in  which 
I  had  enjoyed  their  companionship. 


LIVERPOOL.  275 

On  the  19th  of  August  we  left  London  for 
Liverpool,  and  on  our  arrival  took  lodgings  at 
the  Adelphi  Hotel. 

The  kindness  with  which  I  had  been  wel 
comed,  when  I  first  arrived  at  Liverpool,  had 
left  a  deep  impression  upon  my  mind.  It 
seemed  very  ungrateful  to  leave  that  noble  city, 
which  had  met  me  in  some  of  its  most  esteemed 
representatives  with  a  warm  grasp  of  the  hand 
even  before  my  foot  had  touched  English  soil, 
without  staying  to  thank  my  new  friends,  who 
would  have  it  that  they  were  old  friends.  But 
I  was  entirely  unfit  for  enjoying  any  company 
when  I  landed.  I  took  care,  therefore,  to  allow 
sufficient  time  in  Liverpool,  before  sailing  for 
home,  to  meet  such  friends,  old  and  recent,  as 
cared  to  make  or  renew  acquaintance  with  me. 
In  the  afternoon  of  the  20th  we  held  a  recep 
tion,  at  which  a  hundred  visitors,  more  or 
less,  presented  themselves,  and  we  had.  a  very 
sociable  hour  or  two  together.  The  Vice-Con 
sul,  Mr.  Sewall,  in  the  enforced  absence  of  his 
principal,  Mr.  Russell,  paid  us  every  attention, 
and  was  very  agreeable.  In  the  evening  I 
was  entertained  at  a  great  banquet  given  by 


276     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

the  Philomathean  Society.  This  flourishing  in 
stitution  enrolls  among  its  members  a  large 
proportion  of  the  most  cultivated  and  intelligent 
gentlemen  of  Liverpool.  I  enjoyed  the  meeting 
very  highly,  listened  to  pleasant  things  which 
were  said  about  myself,  and  answered  in  the  un 
premeditated  words  which  came  to  my  lips  and 
were  cordially  received.  I  could  have  wished  to 
see  more  of  Liverpool,  but  I  found  time  only  to 
visit  the  great  exhibition,  then  open.  The  one 
class  of  objects  which  captivated  my  attention 
was  the  magnificent  series  of  models  of  steam 
boats  and  other  vessels.  I  did  not  look  upon 
them  with  the  eye  of  an  expert,  but  the  great 
number  and  variety  of  these  beautiful  miniature 
ships  and  boats  excited  my  admiration. 

On  the  21st  of  August  we  went  on  board  the 
Aurania.  Everything  was  done  to  make  us 
comfortable.  Many  old  acquaintances,  friends, 
and  family  connections  were  our  fellow-passen 
gers.  As  for  myself,  I  passed  through  the  same 
trying  experiences  as  those  which  I  have  re 
corded  as  characterizing  my  outward  passage. 
Our  greatest  trouble  during  the  passage  was 
from  fog.  The  frequency  of  collisions,  of  late 


THE  HOMEWARD  PASSAGE.  277 

years,  tends  to  make  everybody  nervous  when 
they  hear  the  fog-whistle  shrieking.  This  sound 
and  the  sight  of  the  boats  are  not  good  for 
timid  people.  Fortunately,  no  one  was  particu 
larly  excitable,  or  if  so,  no  one  betrayed  any 
special  uneasiness. 

On  the  evening  of  the  27th  we  had  an  enter 
tainment,  in  which  Miss  Kellogg  sang  and  I 
read  several  poems.  A  very  pretty  sum  was 
realized  for  some  charity,  —  I  forget  what,  — 
and  the  affair  was  voted  highly  successful.  The 
next  day,  the  28th,  we  were  creeping  towards 
our  harbor  through  one  of  those  dense  fogs 
which  are  more  dangerous  than  the  old  rocks  of 
the  sirens,  or  Scylla  and  Charybdis,  or  the  much- 
lied- about  maelstrom. 

On  Sunday,  the  29th  of  August,  my  birthday, 
we  arrived  in  New  York.  In  these  days  of 
birthday-books  our  chronology  is  not  a  matter 
of  secret  history,  in  case  we  have  been  much 
before  the  public.  I  found  a  great  cake  had 
been  made  ready  for  me,  in  which  the  number 
of  my  summers  was  represented  by  a  ring  of 
raisins  which  made  me  feel  like  Methuselah.  A 
beautiful  bouquet  which  had  been  miraculously 


278     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

preserved  for  the  occasion  was  for  the  first  time 
displayed.  It  came  from  Dr.  Beach,  of  Boston, 
via  London.  Such  is  the  story,  and  I  can  only 
suppose  that  the  sweet  little  cherub  who  sits  up 
aloft  had  taken  special  charge  of  it,  or  it  would 
have  long  ago  withered. 

We  slept  at  the  Fifth  Avenue  Hotel,  which 
we  found  fresh,  sweet,  bright,  —  it  must  have 
been  recently  rejuvenated,  I  thought.  The  next 
day  we  took  the  train  for  New  Haven,  Spring 
field,  and  Boston,  and  that  night  slept  in  our  own 
beds,  thankful  to  find  ourselves  safe  at  home 
after  our  summer  excursion,  which  had  brought 
us  so  many  experiences  delightful  to  remember, 
so  many  friendships  which  have  made  life  better 
worth  living. 

In  the  following  section  I  shall  give  some  of 
the  general  impressions  which  this  excursion 
has  left  in  my  memory,  and  a  few  suggestions 
derived  from  them. 


VIII. 

MY  reader  was  fairly  forewarned  that  this 
narrative  was  to  be  more  like  a  chapter  of  auto 
biography  than  the  record  of  a  tourist.  In  the 
language  of  philosophy,  it  is  written  from  a  sub 
jective,  not  an  objective,  point  of  view.  It  is 
not  exactly  a  "  Sentimental  Journey,"  though 
there  are  warm  passages  here  and  there  which 
end  with  notes  of  admiration.  I  remind  myself 
now  and  then  of  certain  other  travellers:  of 
Benjamin  of  Tudela,  going  from  the  hospitali 
ties  of  one  son  of  Abraham  to  another  ;  of  John 
Buncle,  finding  the  loveliest  of  women  under 
every  roof  that  sheltered  him ;  sometimes,  per 
haps,  of  that  tipsy  rhymester  whose  record  of 
his  good  and  bad  fortunes  at  the  hands  of  land 
lords  and  landladies  is  enlivened  by  an  occa 
sional  touch  of  humor,  which  makes  it  palatable 
to  coarse  literary  feeders.  But  in  truth  these 
papers  have  many  of  the  characteristics  of  pri 
vate  letters  written  home  to  friends.  They  are 


280     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

written  for  friends,  rather  than  for  a  public 
which  cares  nothing  about  the  writer.  I  knew 
that  there  were  many  such  whom  it  would  please 
to  know  where  the  writer  went,  whom  he  saw 
and  what  he  saw,  and  how  he  was  impressed  by 
persons  and  things. 

If  I  were  planning  to  make  a  tour  of  the 
United  Kingdom,  and  could  command  the  ser 
vice  of  all  the  wise  men  I  count  or  have  counted 
among  my  friends,  I  would  go  with  such  a  re 
tinue  summoned  from  the  ranks  of  the  living 
and  the  dead  as  no  prince  ever  carried  with  him. 
I  would  ask  Mr.  Lowell  to  go  with  me  among 
scholars,  where  I  could  be  a  listener ;  Mr.  Nor 
ton  to  visit  the  cathedrals  with  me;  Professor 
Gray  to  be  my  botanical  oracle  ;  Professor  Ag- 
assiz  to  be  always  ready  to  answer  questions 
about  the  geological  strata  and  their  fossils ;  Dr. 
Jeffries  Wyman  to  point  out  and  interpret  the 
common  objects  which  present  themselves  to  a 
sharp-eyed  observer ;  and  Mr.  Boyd  Dawkins  to 
pilot  me  among  the  caves  and  cairns.  Then  I 
should  want  a  better  pair  of  eyes  and  a  better 
pair  of  ears,  and,  while  I  was  reorganizing,  per 
haps  a  quicker  apprehension  and  a  more  retentive 


WHY  THIS  RECORD  IS  PRINTED.     281 

memory;  in  short,  a  new  outfit,  bodily  and 
mental.  But  Nature  does  not  care  to  mend  old 
shoes ;  she  prefers  a  new  pair,  and  a  young 
person  to  stand  in  them. 

What  a  great  book  one  could  make,  with  such 
aids,  and  how  many  would  fling  it  down,  and 
take  up  anything  in  preference,  provided  only 
that  it  were  short  enough ;  even  this  slight  rec 
ord,  for  want  of  something  shorter  ! 

Not  only  did  I  feel  sure  that  many  friends 
would  like  to  read  our  itinerary,  but  another 
motive  prompted  me  to  tell  the  simple  story  of 
our  travels.  I  could  not  receive  such  kindness, 
so  great  evidences  of  friendly  regard,  without  a 
strong  desire,  amounting  to  a  positive  necessity, 
for  the  expression  of  my  grateful  sense  of  all 
that  had  been  done  for  us.  Individually,  I  felt 
it,  of  course,  as  a  most  pleasing  experience. 
But  I  believed  it  to  have  a  more  important  sig 
nificance  as  an  illustration  of  the  cordial  feel 
ing  existing  between  England  and  America.  I 
know  that  many  of  my  countrymen  felt  the  at 
tentions  paid  to  me  as  if  they  themselves  shared 
them  with  me.  I  have  lived  through  many 
strata  of  feeling  in  America  towards  England. 


282     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

My  parents,  full-blooded  Americans,  were  both 
born  subjects  of  King  George  III.  Both 
learned  in  their  early  years  to  look  upon  Britons 
as  the  enemies  of  their  country.  A  good  deal 
of  the  old  hostility  lingered  through  my  boy  hood, 
and  this  was  largely  intensified  by  the  war  of 
1812.  After  nearly  half  a  century  this  feeling 
had  in  great  measure  subsided,  when  the  War 
of  Secession  called  forth  expressions  of  sym 
pathy  with  the  slaveholding  States  which  sur 
prised,  shocked,  and  deeply  wounded  the  lovers 
of  liberty  and  of  England  in  the  Northern 
States.  A  new  generation  is  outgrowing  that 
alienation.  More  and  more  the  older  and 
younger  nations  are  getting  to  be  proud  and 
really  fond  of  each  other.  There  is  no  shorter 
road  to  a  mother's  heart  than  to  speak  plea 
santly  to  her  child,  and  caress  it,  and  call  it 
pretty  names.  No  matter  whether  the  child  is 
something  remarkable  or  not,  it  is  her  child,  and 
that  is  enough.  It  may  be  made  too  much  of, 
but  that  is  not  its  mother's  fault.  If  I  could 
believe  that  every  attention  paid  me  was  due 
simply  to  my  being  an  American,  I  should  feel 
honored  and  happy  in  being  one  of  the  hum- 


LOST  OPPORTUNITIES. 

bier  media  through  which  the  good -will  of  a 
great  and  generous  country  reached  the  heart  of 
a  far  off  people  not  always  in  friendly  relations 
with  her. 

I  have  named  many  of  the  friends  who  did 
everything  to  make  our  stay  in  England  and 
Scotland  agreeable.  The  unforeseen  shortening 
of  my  visit  must  account  for  many  disappoint 
ments  to  myself,  and  some,  it  may  be,  to  others. 

First  in  the  list  of  lost  opportunities  was  that 
of  making  my  bow  to  the  Queen.  I  had  the 
honor  of  receiving  a  card  with  the  invitation  to 
meet  Her  Majesty  at  a  garden-party,  but  we 
were  travelling  when  it  was  sent,  and  it  arrived 
too  late. 

I  was  very  sorry  not  to  meet  Mr.  Ruskin,  to 
whom  Mr.  Norton  had  given  me  a  note  of  intro 
duction.  At  the  time  when  we  were  hoping  to 
see  him  it  was  thought  that  he  was  too  ill  to  re 
ceive  visitors,  but  he  has  since  written  me  that 
he  regretted  we  did  not  carry  out  our  intention. 
I  lamented  my  being  too  late  to  see  once  more 
two  gentlemen  from  whom  I  should  have  been 
sure  of  a  kind  welcome,  —  Lord  Hough  ton  and 
Dean  Stanley,  both  of  whom  I  had  met  in  Bos- 


284     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

ton.  Even  if  I  had  stayed  out  the  whole  time  I 
had  intended  to  remain  abroad,  I  should  un 
doubtedly  have  failed  to  see  many  persons  and 
many  places  that  I  must  always  feel  sorry  for 
having  missed.  But  as  it  is,  I  will  not  try  to 
count  all  that  I  lost ;  let  me  rather  be  thankful 
that  I  met  so  many  friends  whom  it  was  a  plea 
sure  to  know  personally,  and  saw  so  much  that 
it  is  a  pleasure  to  remember. 

I  find  that  many  of  the  places  I  most  wish  to 
see  are  those  associated  with  the  memory  of 
some  individual,  generally  one  of  the  generations 
more  or  less  in  advance  of  my  own.  One  of  the 
first  places  I  should  go  to,  in  a  leisurely  tour, 
would  be  Selborne.  Gilbert  White  was  not  a 
poet,  neither  was  he  a  great  systematic  naturalist. 
But  he  used  his  eyes  on  the  world  about  him ; 
he  found  occupation  and  happiness  in  his  daily 
walks,  and  won  as  large  a  measure  of  immortal 
ity  within  the  confines  of  his  little  village  as  he 
could  have  gained  in  exploring  the  sources  of 
the  Nile.  I  should  make  a  solemn  pilgrimage  to 
the  little  town  of  Eyam,  in  Derbyshire,  where 
the  Reverend  Mr.  Mompesson,  the  hero  of  the 
plague  of  1665,  and  his  wife,  its  heroine  and  its 


UN VI SITED  SHRINES.  285 

victim,  lie  buried.  I  should  like  to  follow  the 
traces  of  Cowper  at  Gluey  and  of  Buiiyan  at 
Elstow.  I  found  an  intense  interest  in  the 
Reverend  Mr.  Alger's  account  of  his  visit  to 
the  Vale  of  Llangollen,  where  Lady  Eleanor 
Butler  and  Miss  Ponsonby  passed  their  peaceful 
days  in  long,  uninterrupted  friendship.  Of 
course  the  haunts  of  Burns,  the  home  of  Scott, 
the  whole  region  made  sacred  by  Wordsworth 
and  the  group  to  which  he  belongs  would  be  so 
many  shrines  to  which  I  should  make  pilgrim 
ages. 

I  own,  also,  to  having  something  of  the  melo 
dramatic  taste  so  notable  in  Victor  Hugo.  I 
admired  the  noble  facade  of  Wells  cathedral 
and  the  grand  old  episcopal  palace,  but  I  begged 
the  bishop  to  show  me  the  place  where  his  pre 
decessor,  Bishop  Kidder  and  his  wife,  were  killed 
by  the  falling  chimney  in  the  "Great  Storm."  — 
I  wanted  to  go  to  Devizes,  and  see  the  monu 
ment  in  the  market-place,  where  Ruth  Pierce  was 
struck  dead  with  a  lie  in  her  mouth,  —  about  all 
which  I  had  read  in  early  boyhood.  I  contented 
myself  with  a  photograph  of  it  which  my  friend, 
Mr.  Willett,  went  to  Devizes  and  bought  for  me. 


286     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

There  are  twenty  different  Englands,  every 
one  of  which  it  would  be  a  delight  to  visit,  and 
I  should  hardly  know  with  which  of  them  to 
begin. 

The  few  remarks  I  have  to  make  on  what  I 
saw  and  heard  have  nothing  beyond  the  value 
of  first  impressions ;  but  as  I  have  already  said, 
if  these  are  simply  given,  without  pretending  to 
be  anything  more,  they  are  not  worthless.  At 
least  they  can  do  little  harm,  and  may  some 
times  amuse  a  reader  whom  they  fail  to  in 
struct.  But  we  must  all  beware  of  hasty  con 
clusions.  If  a  foreigner  of  limited  intelligence 
were  whirled  through  England  on  the  railways, 
he  would  naturally  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  chief  product  of  that  country  is  mustard, 
and  that  its  most  celebrated  people  are  Mr. 
Keen  and  Mr.  Colman,  whose  great  advertising 
boards,  yellow  letters  on  a  black  ground,  and 
black  letters  on  a  yellow  ground,  stare  the  trav 
eller  in  the  face  at  every  station. 

Of  the  climate,  as  I  knew  it  in  May  and  the 
summer  months,  I  will  only  say  that  if  I  had  any 
illusions  about  May  and  June  in  England,  my 


GENERAL  IMPRESSIONS.  287 

fireplace  would  have  been  ample  evidence  that  I 
was  entirely  disenchanted.  The  Derby  day,  the 
26th  of  May,  was  most  chilly  and  uncomfortable  ; 
at  the  garden-party  at  Kensington  Palace,  on  the 
4th  of  June,  it  was  cold  enough  to  make  hot 
drinks  and  warm  wraps  a  comfort,  if  not  a  ne 
cessity.  I  was  thankful  to  have  passed  through 
these  two  ordeals  without  ill  consequences. 
Drizzly,  or  damp,  or  cold,  cloudy  days  were  the 
rule  rather  than  the  exception,  while  we  were  in 
London.  \Ve  had  some  few  hot  days,  espe 
cially  at  Stratford,  in  the  early  part  of  July.  In 
London  an  umbrella  is  as  often  carried  as  a 
cane  ;  in  Paris  "  un  homme  a  parapluie  "  is,  or 
used  to  be,  supposed  to  carry  that  useful  article 
because  he  does  not  keep  and  cannot  hire  a  car 
riage  of  some  sort.  He  may  therefore  be  safely 
considered  a  person,  and  not  a  personage. 

The  soil  of  England  does  not  seem  to  be  worn 
out,  to  judge  by  the  wonderful  verdure  and  the 
luxuriance  of  vegetation.  It  contains  a  great 
museum  of  geological  specimens,  and  a  series  of 
historical  strata  which  are  among  the  most  in 
structive  of  human  records.  I  do  not  pretend  to 
much  knowledge  of  geology.  The  most  interest- 


288      OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

ing  geological  objects  in  our  New  England  that 
I  can  think  of  are  the  great  boulders  and  the 
scratched  and  smoothed  surface  of  the  rocks; 
the  fossil  footprints  in  the  valley  of  the  Connec 
ticut  ;  the  trilobites  found  at  Quincy.  But  the 
readers  of  Hugh  Miller  remember  what  a  vari 
ety  of  fossils  he  found  in  the  stratified  rocks 
of  his  little  island,  and  the  museums  are  full 
of  just  such  objects.  When  it  comes  to  un 
derground  historical  relics,  the  poverty  of  New 
England  as  compared  with  the  wealth  of  Old 
England  is  very  striking.  Stratum  after  stratum 
carries  the  explorer  through  the  relics  of  succes 
sive  invaders.  After  passing  through  the  char 
acteristic  traces  of  different  peoples,  he  comes 
upon  a  Roman  pavement,  and  below  this  the 
weapons  and  ornaments  of  a  tribe  of  ancient 
Britons.  One  cannot  strike  a  spade  into  the 
earth,  in  Great  Britain,  without  a  fair  chance  of 
some  surprise  in  the  form  of  a  Saxon  coin,  or  a 
Celtic  implement,  or  a  Roman  fibula.  Nobody 
expects  any  such  pleasing  surprise  in  a  New 
England  field.  One  must  be  content  with  an  In 
dian  arrowhead  or  two,  now  and  then  a  pestle 
and  mortar,  or  a  stone  pipe.  A  top  dressing  of 


GENERAL  IMPRESSIONS.  289 

antiquity  is  all  he  can  look  for.  The  soil  is  not 
Immani/.iHl  enough  to  be  interesting  ;  whereas  in 
England  so  much  of  it  has  been  trodden  by  hu 
man  feet,  built  on  in  the  form  of  human  habita 
tions,  nay,  has  been  itself  a  part  of  preceding 
generations  of  human  beings,  that  it  is  in  a  kind 
of  dumb  sympathy  with  those  who  tread  its  turf. 
Perhaps  it  is  not  literally  true  that 

One  half  her  soil  lias  walked  the  rest 
In  poets,  heroes,  martyrs,  sagos  ; 

but  so  many  of  all  these  lie  within  it  that  the 
whole  mother  island  is  a  campo  santo  to  all  who 
can  claim  the  same  blood  as  that  which  runs  in 
the  veins  of  her  unweaned  children. 

The  flora  and  fauna  of  a  country,  as  seen 
from  railroad  trains  and  carriages,  are  not  likely 
to  be  very  accurately  or  exhaustively  studied.  I 
spoke  of  the  trees  I  noticed  between  Chester 
and  London  somewhat  slightingly.  But  I  did 
not  form  any  hasty  opinions  from  what  happened 
to  catch  my  eye.  Afterwards,  in  the  oaks  and 
elms  of  Windsor  Park,  in  the  elms  of  Cambridge 
and  Oxford  and  Salisbury,  in  the  lindens  of 
Stratford,  in  the  various  noble  trees,  including 


290     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

the  cedar  of  Lebanon,  in  which  Tennyson  very 
justly  felt  a  pride  a^fcheir  owner,  I  saw  enough 
to  make  me  glad  that  I  had  not  uttered  any 
rash  generalizations  on  the  strength  of  my  first 
glance.  The  most  interesting  comparison  I 
made  was  between  the  New  England  and  the 
Old  England  elms.  It  is  not  necessary  to  cross 
the  ocean  to  do  this,  as  we  have  both  varieties 
growing  side  by  side  in  our  parks,  —  on  Boston 
Common,  for  instance.  It  is  wonderful  to  note 
how  people  will  lie  about  big  trees.  There 
must  be  as  many  as  a  dozen  trees,  each  of  which 
calls  itself  the  "  largest  elm  in  New  England." 
In  my  younger  days,  when  I  never  travelled 
without  a  measuring-tape  in  my  pocket,  it 
amused  me  to  see  how  meek  one  of  the  great 
swaggering  elms  would  look  when  it  saw  the 
fatal  measure  begin  to  unreel  itself.  It  seemed 
to  me  that  the  leaves  actually  trembled  as  the 
inexorable  band  encircled  the  trunk  in  the  small 
est  place  it  could  find,  which  is  the  only  safe 
rule.  The  English  elm  (Vlmus  campestris) 
as  we  see  it  in  Boston  comes  out  a  little  earlier 
perhaps,  than  our  own,  but  the  difference  is 
slight.  It  holds  its  leaves  long  after  our  elms 


GENERAL  IMPRESSIONS.  291 

are  bare.  It  grows  upward,  with  abundant  dark 
foliage,  while  ours  spreads,  sometimes  a  hundred 
and  twenty  feet,  and  often  droops  like  a  weep 
ing  willow.  The  English  elm  looks  like  a  much 
more  robust  tree  than  ours,  yet  they  tell  me  it  is 
very  fragile,  and  that  its  limbs  are  constantly 
breaking  off  in  high  winds,  just  as  happens 
with  our  native  elms.  Ours  is  not  a  very  long- 
lived  tree ;  between  two  and  three  hundred 
years  is,  I  think,  the  longest  life  that  can  be 
hoped  for  it.  Since  I  have  heard  of  the  fragil 
ity  of  the  English  elm,  which  is  the  fatal  fault 
of  our  own,  I  have  questioned  whether  it  can 
claim  a  greater  longevity  than  ours.  There  is  a 
hint  of  a  typical  difference  in  the  American  and 
the  Englishman  which  I  have  long  recognized 
in  the  two  elms  as  compared  to  each  other.  It 
may  be  fanciful,  but  I  have  thought  that  the 
compactness  and  robustness  about  the  English 
elm,  which  are  replaced  by  the  long,  tapering 
limbs  and  willowy  grace  and  far-spreading  reach 
of  our  own,  might  find  a  certain  parallelism  in 
the  people,  especially  the  females  of  the  two 
countries. 

I  saw  no  horse-chestnut  trees  equal  to  thase  I 


292     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

remember  in  Salem,  and  especially  to  one  in 
Eockport,  which  is  the  largest  and  finest  I  have 
ever  seen;  no  willows  like  those  I  pass  in  my 
daily  drives. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  think  I  never  looked 
upon  a  Lombardy  poplar  equal  to  one  I  saw  in 
Cambridge,  England.  This  tree  seems  to  flour 
ish  in  England  much  more  than  with  us. 

I  do  not  remember  any  remarkable  beeches, 
though  there  are  some  very  famous  ones,  espe 
cially  the  Burnham  beeches. 

No  apple-trees  I  saw  in  England  compare  with 
one  next  my  own  door,  and  there  are  many  oth 
ers  as  fine  in  the  neighborhood. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  pleasure  I  had  in  seeing 
by  the  roadside  primroses,  cowslips,  and  daisies. 
Dandelions,  buttercups,  hawkweed,  looked  much 
as  ours  do  at  home.  Wild  roses  also  grew  at 
the  roadside,  —  smaller  and  paler,  I  thought, 
than  ours. 

I  cannot  make  a  chapter  like  the  famous  one 
on  Iceland,  from  my  own  limited  observation : 
There  are  no  snakes  in  England.  I  can  say 
that  I  found  two  small  caterpillars  on  my  over 
coat,  in  coming  from  Lord  Tennyson's  grounds. 


GENERAL  IMPRESSIONS.  293 

If  they  had  stayed  on  his  premises,  they  might 
perhaps  have  developed  into  "  purple  emperors," 
or  spread  "the  tiger  moth's  deep  damasked 
wings  "  before  the  enraptured  eyes  of  the  noble 
poet.  These  two  caterpillars  and  a  few  house- 
flies  are  all  I  saw,  heard,  or  felt,  by  day  or  night, 
of  the  native  fauna  of  England,  except  a  few 
birds,  —  rooks,  starlings,  a  blackbird,  and  the 
larks  of  Salisbury  Plain  just  as  they  rose ;  for 
I  lost  sight  of  them  almost  immediately.  I 
neither  heard  nor  saw  the  nightingales,  to  my 
great  regret.  They  had  been  singing  at  Ox 
ford  a  short  time  before  my  visit  to  that  place. 
The  only  song  I  heard  was  that  which  I  have 
mentioned,  the  double  note  of  the  cuckoo. 

England  is  the  paradise  of  horses.  They  are 
bred,  fed,  trained,  groomed,  housed,  cared  for,  in 
a  way  to  remind  one  of  the  Houyhnhnms,  and 
strikingly  contrasting  with  the  conditions  of  life 
among  the  wretched  classes  whose  existence  is 
hardly  more  tolerable  than  that  of  those  quasi- 
human  beings  under  whose  name  it  pleased  the 
fierce  satirist  to  degrade  humanity.  The  horses 
that  are  driven  in  the  hansoms  of  London  are 
the  best  I  have  seen  in  any  public  conveyance. 


294     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

I  cannot  say  as  much  of  those  in  the  four-wheel 
ers. 

Broad  streets,  sometimes,  as  in  Bond  Street, 
with  narrow  sidewalks ;  islands  for  refuge  in 
the  middle  of  many  of  them  ;  deep  areas  ;  lofty 
houses ;  high  walls ;  plants  in  the  windows ; 
frequent  open  spaces ;  policemen  at  near  inter 
vals,  always  polite  in  my  experience,  —  such  are 
my  recollections  of  the  quarter  I  most  fre 
quented. 

Are  the  English  taller,  stouter,  lustier,  rud 
dier,  healthier,  than  our  New  England  people  ? 
If  I  gave  my  impression,  I  should  say  that  they 
are.  Among  the  wealthier  class,  tall,  athletic- 
looking  men  and  stately,  well-developed  women 
are  more  common,  I  am  compelled  to  think,  than 
with  us.  I  met  in  company  at  different  times 
five  gentlemen,  each  of  whom  would  be  conspicu 
ous  in  any  crowd  for  his  stature  and  proportions. 
We  could  match  their  proportions,  however,  in 
the  persons  of  well-known  Bostonians.  To  see 
how  it  was  with  other  classes,  I  walked  in  the 
Strand  one  Sunday,  and  noted  carefully  the  men 
and  women  I  met.  I  was  surprised  to  see  how 
many  of  both  sexes  were  of  low  stature.  I 


GENERAL  IMPRESSIONS.  295 

counted  in  the  course  of  a  few  minutes'  walk  no 
less  than  twenty  of  these  little  people.  I  set 
this  experience  against  the  other.  Neither  is 
convincing.  The  anthropologists  will  settle  the 
question  of  man  in  the  Old  and  in  the  New 
World  before  many  decades  have  passed. 

In  walking  the  fashionable  streets  of  London 
one  can  hardly  fail  to  be  struck  with  the  well- 
dressed  look  of  gentlemen  of  all  ages.  The 
special  point  in  which  the  Londoner  excels  all 
other  citizens  I  am  conversant  with  is  the  hat. 
I  have  not  forgotten  Beranger's 

"  Quoique  leurs  chapeaux  soient  bien  laids 
***  •**!  moi,  j'aime  les  Anglais ;  " 

but  in  spite  of  it  I  believe  in  the  English  hat  as 
the  best  thing  of  its  ugly  kind.  As  for  the 
Englishman's  feeling  with  reference  to  it,  a  for 
eigner  might  be  pardoned  for  thinking  it  was 
his  fetich,  a  North  American  Indian  for  looking 
at  it  as  taking  the  place  of  his  own  medicine- 
bag.  It  is  a  common  thing  for  the  Englishman 
to  say  his  prayers  into  it,  as  he  sits  down  in  his 
pew.  Can  it  be  that  this  imparts  a  religious 
character  to  the  article  ?  However  this  may  be, 


296     OUR  HUNDRED  DATS  IN  EUROPE. 

the  true  Londoner's  bat  is  cared  for  as  reveren 
tially  as  a  High-Church  altar.  Far  off  its  com 
ing  shines.  I  was  always  impressed  by  the  fact 
that  even  with  us  a  well-bred  gentleman  in  re 
duced  circumstances  never  forgets  to  keep  his 
beaver  well  brushed,  and  I  remember  that  long 
ago  I  spoke  of  the  hat  as  the  ultimum  moriens 
of  what  we  used  to  call  gentility,  —  the  last 
thing  to  perish  in  the  decay  of  a  gentleman's 
outfit.  His  hat  is  as  sacred  to  an  Englishman 
as  his  beard  to  a  Mussulman. 

In  looking  at  the  churches  and  the  monuments 
which  I  saw  in  London  and  elsewhere  in  Eng 
land,  certain  resemblances,  comparisons,  paral 
lels,  contrasts,  and  suggestions  obtruded  them 
selves  upon  my  consciousness.  We  have  one 
steeple  in  Boston  which  to  my  eyes  seems  abso 
lutely  perfect :  that  of  the  Central  Church,  at 
the  corner  of  Newbury  and  Berkeley  streets. 
Its  resemblance  to  the  spire  of  Salisbury  had  al 
ways  struck  me.  On  mentioning  this  to  the  late 
Mr.  Richardson,  the  very  distinguished  archi 
tect,  he  said  to  me  that  he  thought  it  more 
nearly  like  that  of  the  Cathedral  of  Chartres. 


GENERAL  IMPRESSIONS.  297 

One  of  our  best  living  architects  agreed  with  me 
as  to  its  similarity  to  that  of  Salisbury.  It  does 
not  copy  either  exactly,  but,  if  it  had  twice  its 
actual  dimensions,  would  compare  well  with  the 
best  of  the  two,  if  one  is  better  than  the  other. 
Saint-Martin's-iu-the-Fields  made  me  feel  as  if  I 
were  in  Boston.  Our  Arlington  Street  Church 
copies  it  pretty  closely,  but  Mr.  Oilman  left  out 
the  columns.  I  could  not  admire  the  Nelson 
Column,  nor  that  which  lends  monumental  dis 
tinction  to  the  Duke  of  York.  After  Trajan's 
and  that  of  the  Place  Vendome,  each  of  which 
is  a  permanent  and  precious  historical  record, 
accounting  sufficiently  for  its  existence,  there 
is  something  very  unsatisfactory  in  these  nude 
cylinders.  That  to  the  Duke  of  York  might 
well  have  the  confession  of  the  needy  knife 
grinder  as  an  inscription  on  its  base.  I  confess 
in  all  honesty  that  I  vastly  prefer  the  monument 
commemorating  the  fire  to  either  of  them. 
That  has  a  story  to  tell  and  tells  it,  —  with  a  lie 
or  two  added,  according  to  Pope,  but  it  tells  it 
in  language  and  symbol. 

As  for  the  kind  of  monument  such  as  I  see 
from  my  library  window  standing  on  the  sum- 


298  OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

mit  of  Bunker  Hill,  and  have  recently  seen  for 
the  first  time  at  Washington,  on  a  larger  scale,  I 
own  that  I  think  a  built-up  obelisk  a  poor  affair 
as  compared  with  an  Egyptian  monolith  of  the 
same  form.  It  was  a  triumph  of  skill  to  quarry, 
to  shape,  to  transport,  to  cover  with  expressive 
symbols,  to  erect,  such  a  stone  as  that  which  has 
been  transferred  to  the  Thames  Embankment, 
or  that  which  now  stands  in  Central  Park,  New 
York.  Each  of  its  four  sides  is  a  page  of  history, 
written  so  as  to  endure  through  scores  of  centu 
ries.  A  built-up  obelisk  requires  very  little  more 
than  brute  labor.  A  child  can  shape  its  model 
from  a  carrot  or  a  parsnip,  and  set  it  up  in  minia 
ture  with  blocks  of  loaf  sugar.  It  teaches  noth 
ing,  and  the  stranger  must  go  to  his  guide-book  to 
know  what  it  is  there  for.  I  was  led  into  many 
reflections  by  a  sight  of  the  Washington  Monu 
ment.  I  found  that  it  was  almost  the  same 
thing  at  a  mile's  distance  as  the  Bunker  Hill 
Monument  at  half  a  mile's  distance  ;  and  unless 
the  eye  had  some  means  of  measuring  the  space 
between  itself  and  the  stone  shaft,  one  was 
about  as  good  as  the  other.  A  mound  like  that 
of  Marathon  or  that  at  Waterloo,  a  cairn,  even 


MISCELLANEOUS  OBSERVATIONS.     299 

a  shaft  of  the  most  durable  form  and  material, 
are  fit  memorials  of  the  place  where  a  great  bat 
tle  was  fought.  They  seem  less  appropriate  as 
monuments  to  individuals.  I  doubt  the  dura 
bility  of  these  piecemeal  obelisks,  and  when  I 
think  of  that  vast  inverted  pendulum  vibrating 
in  an  earthquake,  I  am  glad  that  I  do  not  live 
in  its  shadow.  The  Washington  Monument  is 
more  than  a  hundred  feet  higher  than  Salisbury 
steeple,  but  it  does  not  look  to  me  so  high  as 
that,  because  the  mind  has  nothing  to  climb  by. 
But  the  forming  taste  of  the  country  revels  in 
superlatives,  and  if  we  could  only  have  the  deep 
est  artesian  well  in  the  world  sunk  by  the  side 
of  the  tallest  column  in  all  creation,  the  admir 
ing,  not  overcritical  patriot  would  be  happier 
than  ever  was  the  Athenian  when  he  looked  up 
at  the  newly  erected  Parthenon. 

I  made  a  few  miscellaneous  observations 
which  may  be  worth  recording.  One  of  these 
was  the  fact  of  the  repetition  of  the  types  of  men 
and  women  with  which  I  was  familiar  at  home. 
Every  now  and  then  I  met  a  new  acquaintance 
whom  I  felt  that  I  had  seen  before.  Presently 


300     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

I  identified  him  with  his  double  on  the  other 
side.  I  had  found  long  ago  that  even  among 
Frenchmen  I  often  fell  in  with  persons  whose 
counterparts  I  had  known  in  America.  I  began 
to  feel  as  if  Nature  turned  out  a  batch  of  human 
beings  for  every  locality  of  any  importance,  very 
much  as  a  workman  makes  a  set  of  chessmen. 
If  I  had  lived  a  little  longer  in  London,  I  am 
confident  that  I  should  have  met  myself,  as  I 
did  actually  meet  so  many  others  who  were  du 
plicates  of  those  long  known  to  me. 

I  met  Mr.  Galton  for  a  few  moments,  but  I 
had  no  long  conversation  with  him.  If  he 
should  ask  me  to  say  how  many  faces  I  can  vis 
ually  recall,  I  should  have  to  own  that  there  are 
very  few  such.  The  two  pictures  which  I  have 
already  referred  to,  those  of  Erasmus  and  of  Dr. 
Johnson,  come  up  more  distinctly  before  my 
mind's  eye  than  almost  any  faces  of  the  living. 
My  mental  retina  has,  I  fear,  lost  much  of  its 
sensitiveness.  Long  and  repeated  exposure  of 
an  object  of  any  kind,  in  a  strong  light,  is 
necessary  to  fix  its  image. 

Among  the  gratifications  that  awaited  me  in 


MISCELLANEOUS  OBSERVATIONS.    301 

England  and  Scotland  was  that  of  meeting  many 
before  unseen  friends  with  whom  I  had  been  in 
correspondence.  I  have  spoken  of  Mr.  John 
Bellows.  I  should  have  been  glad  to  meet  Mr. 
William  Smith,  the  Yorkshire  antiquary,  who 
has  sent  me  many  of  his  antiquarian  and  bio 
graphical  writings  and  publications.  I  do  not 
think  I  saw  Mr.  David  Gilmour,  of  Paisley, 
whose  "  Paisley  Folk  "  and  other  writings  have 
given  me  great  pleasure.  But  I  did  have  the 
satisfaction  of  meeting  Professor  Gairdner,  of 
Glasgow,  to  whose  writings  my  attention  was  first 
called  by  my  revered  instructor,  the  late  Dr. 
James  Jackson,  and  with  whom  I  had  occasion 
ally  corresponded.  I  ought  to  have  met  Dr. 
Martineau.  I  should  have  visited  the  Reverend 
Stopford  Brooke,  who  could  have  told  me  much 
that  I  should  have  liked  to  hear  of  dear  friends 
of  mine,  of  whom  he  saw  a  great  deal  in  their 
hours  of  trial.  The  Reverend  Mr.  Voysey,  whose 
fearless  rationalism  can  hardly  give  him  popu 
larity  among  the  conservative  people  I  saw  most 
of,  paid  me  the  compliment  of  calling,  as  he  had 
often  done  of  sending  me  his  published  papers. 
Now  and  then  some  less  known  correspondent 


302     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

would  reveal  himself  or  herself  in  bodily  pre 
sence.  Let  most  authors  beware  of  showing 
themselves  to  those  who  have  idealized  them, 
and  let  readers  not  be  too  anxious  to  see  in  the 
flesh  those  whom  they  have  idealized.  When  I 
was  a  boy,  I  read  Miss  Edgeworth's  "L'Amie 
Inconnue."  I  have  learned  to  appreciate  its 
meaning  in  later  years  by  abundant  experiences, 
and  I  have  often  felt  unwilling  to  substitute  my 
real  for  my  imaginary  presence.  I  will  add 
here  that  I  must  have  met  a  considerable  num 
ber  of  persons,  in  the  crowd  at  our  reception  and 
elsewhere,  whose  names  I  failed  to  hear,  and 
whom  1  consequently  did  not  recognize  as  the 
authors  of  books  I  had  read,  or  of  letters  I  had 
received.  The  story  of  my  experience  with  the 
lark  accounts  for  a  good  deal  of  what  seemed 
like  negligence  or  forgetfulness,  and  which  must 
be,  not  pardoned,  but  sighed  over. 

I  visited  several  of  the  well-known  clubs, 
either  by  special  invitation,  or  accompanied  by 
a  member.  The  Athenaeum  was  particularly  at 
tentive,  but  I  was  unable  to  avail  myself  of  the 
privileges  it  laid  freely  open  before  me  during 
my  stay  in  London.  Other  clubs  I  looked  in 


MISCELLANEOUS  OBSERVATIONS.     803 

upon  were :  the  Reform  Club,  where  I  had  the 
pleasure  of  dining  at  a  large  party  given  by  the 
very  distinguished  Dr.  Morell  Mackenzie ;  the 
Rabelais,  of  which,  as  I  before  related,  I  have 
been  long  a  member,  and  which  was  one  of  the 
first  places  where  I  dined ;  the  Saville ;  the  Sav 
age  ;  the  St.  George's.  I  saw  next  to  nothing 
of  the  proper  club-life  of  London,  but  it  seemed 
to  me  that  the  Athenaeum  must  be  a  very  desir 
able  place  of  resort  to  the  educated  Londoner, 
and  no  doubt  each  of  the  many  institutions  of 
this  kind  with  which  London  abounds  has  its 
special  attractions. 

My  obligations  to  my  brethren  of  the  medi 
cal  profession  are  too  numerous  to  be  mentioned 
in  detail.  Almost  the  first  visit  I  paid  was  one 
to  my  old  friend  and  fellow-student  in  Paris,  Dr. 
Walter  Hayle  Walshe.  After  more  than  half  a 
century's  separation,  two  young  friends,  now  old 
friends,  must  not  expect  to  find  each  other  just 
the  same  as  when  they  parted.  Dr.  Walshe 
thought  he  should  have  known  me ;  my  eyes  are 
not  so  good  as  his,  and  I  would  not  answer  for 
them  and  for  my  memory.  That  he  should  have 
dedicated  his  recent  original  and  ingenious  work 


304      OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

to  me,  before  I  had  thought  of  visiting  England, 
was  a  most  gratifying  circumstance.  I  have 
mentioned  the  hospitalities  extended  to  me  by 
various  distinguished  members  of  the  medical 
profession,  but  I  have  not  before  referred  to  the 
readiness  with  which,  on  all  occasions,  when  pro 
fessional  advice  was  needed,  it  was  always  given 
with  more  than  willingness,  rather  as  if  it  were 
a  pleasure  to  give  it.  I  could  not  have  accepted 
such  favors  as  I  received  had  I  not  remembered 
that  I,  in  my  time,  had  given  my  services  freely 
for  the  benefit  of  those  of  my  own  calling.  If  I 
refer  to  two  names  among  many,  it  is  for  special 
reasons.  Dr.  Wilson  Fox,  the  distinguished 
and  widely  known  practitioner,  who  showed  us 
great  kindness,  has  since  died,  and  this  passing 
tribute  is  due  to  his  memory.  I  have  before 
spoken  of  the  exceptional  favor  we  owed  to  Dr. 
and  Mrs.  Priestley.  It  enabled  us  to  leave 
London  feeling  that  we  had  tried,  at  least,  to 
show  our  grateful  sense  of  all  the  attentions 
bestowed  upon  us.  If  there  were  any  whom 
we  overlooked,  among  the  guests  we  wished  to 
honor,  all  such  accidental  omissions  will  be  par 
doned,  I  feel  sure,  by  those  who  know  how  great 


Ml^'il  l.ASEOUS  OBSERVATIONS.     305 

and  bewildering  is  the  pressure  of  social  life  in 
London. 

I  was,  no  doubt,  often  more  or  less  confused, 
in  my  perceptions,  by  the  large  number  of  per 
sons  whom  I  met  in  society.  I  found  the  din 
ner-parties,  as  Mr.  Lowell  told  me  I  should,  very 
much  like  the  same  entertainments  among  my 
home  acquaintances.  I  have  not  the  gift  of  si 
lence,  and  I  am  not  a  bad  listener,  yet  I  brought 
away  next  to  nothing  from  dinner-parties  where 
I  had  said  and  heard  enough  to  fill  out  a  maga 
zine  article.  After  I  was  introduced  to  a  lady, 
the  conversation  frequently  began  somewhat  in 
this  way :  — 

44  It  is  a  long  time  since  you  have  been  in  this 
country,  I  believe  ?  " 

44 It  is  a  very  long  time:  fifty  years  and 
more." 

44  You  find  great  changes  in  London,  of  course, 
I  suppose  ? " 

44  Not  so  great  as  you  might  think.  The 
Tower  is  where  I  left  it.  The  Abbey  is  much 
as  I  remember  it.  Northumberland  House  with 
its  lion  is  gone,  but  Charing  Cross  is  in  the  same 
old  place.  My  attention  is  drawn  especially  to 


306      OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

the  things  which  have  not  changed,  —  those 
which  I  remember." 

That  stream  was  quickly  dried  up.  Conversa 
tion  soon  found  other  springs.  I  never  knew  the 
talk  to  get  heated  or  noisy.  Religion  and  poli 
tics  rarely  came  up,  and  never  in  any  controver 
sial  way.  The  bitterest  politician  I  met  at  table 
was  a  quadruped,  —  a  lady's  dog,  —  who  re 
fused  a  desirable  morsel  offered  him  in  the  name 
of  Mr.  Gladstone,  but  snapped  up  another  in 
stantly  on  being  told  that  it  came  from  Queen 
Victoria.  I  recall  many  pleasant  and  some  de 
lightful  talks  at  the  dinner-table ;  one  in  particu 
lar,  with  the  most  charming  woman  in  England. 
I  wonder  if  she  remembers  how  very  lovely  and 
agreeable  she  was  ?  Possibly  she  may  be  able 
to  identify  herself. 

People,  —  the  right  kind  of  people,  —  meet  at 
a  dinner-party  as  two  ships  meet  and  pass  each 
other  at  sea.  They  exchange  a  few  signals ; 
ask  each  other's  reckoning,  where  from,  where 
bound ;  perhaps  one  supplies  the  other  with  a 
little  food  or  a  few  dainties  ;  then  they  part,  to 
see  each  other  no  more.  But  one  or  both  may 
remember  the  hour  passed  together  all  their 


MISCELLANEOUS  OBSERVATIONS.     307 

days,  just  as  I  recollect  our  brief  parley  with  the 
brig  Economist,  of  Leith,  from  Sierra  Leone,  ill 
mid  ocean,  in  the  spring  of  1833. 

I  am  very  far  from  despising  the  science  of 
gastronomy,  but  if  I  wished  to  institute  a  compar 
ison  between  the  tables  of  England  and  America, 
I  could  not  do  it  without  eating  my  way 
through  the  four  seasons.  I  will  say  that  I  did 
not  think  the  bread  from  the  bakers'  shops  was 
so  good  as  our  own.  It  was  very  generally 
tough  and  hard,  and  even  the  muffins  were  not 
always  so  tender  and  delicate  as  they  ought  to 
be.  I  got  impatient  one  day,  and  sent  out  for 
some  biscuits.  They  brought  some  very  excel 
lent  ones,  which  we  much  preferred  to  the  tough 
bread.  They  proved  to  be  the  so-called  "  sea- 
foam  "  biscuit  from  New  York.  The  potatoes 
never  came  on  the  table  looking  like  new-fallen 
snow,  as  we  have  them  at  home.  We  were  sur 
prised  to  find  both  mutton  and  beef  overdone, 
according  to  our  American  taste.  The  French 
talk  about  the  Briton's  "  bifteck  saignant,"  but 
we  never  saw  anything  cooked  so  as  to  be,  as  we 
should  say,  "  rare."  The  tart  is  national  with 
the  English,  as  the  pie  is  national  with  us.  I 


308     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

never  saw  on  an  English  table  that  excellent 
substitute  for  both,  called  the  Washington  pie, 
in  memory  of  him  whom  we  honor  as  first  in 
pies,  as  well  as  in  war  and  in  the  hearts  of  his 
countrymen. 

The  truth  is  that  I  gave  very  little  thought  to 
the  things  set  before  me,  in  the  excitement  of 
constantly  changing  agreeable  companionship. 
I  understand  perfectly  the  feeling  of  the  good 
liver  in  Punch,  who  suggests  to  the  lady  next 
him  that  their  host  has  one  of  the  best  cooks  in 
London,  and  that  it  might  therefore  be  well  to 
defer  all  conversation  until  they  adjourned  to  the 
drawing-room.  I  preferred  the  conversation, 
and  adjourned,  indefinitely,  the  careful  apprecia 
tion  of  the  menu.  I  think  if  I  could  devote  a 
year  to  it,  I  might  be  able  to  make  out  a  grad 
uated  scale  of  articles  of  food,  taking  a  well- 
boiled  fresh  egg  as  the  unit  of  gastronomic 
value,  but  I  leave  this  scientific  task  to  some 
future  observer. 

The  most  remarkable  piece  of  European 
handiwork  I  remember  was  the  steel  chair  at 
Longford  Castle.  The  most  startling  and 
frightful  work  of  man  I  ever  saw  or  expect  to 


MISCELLANEOUS  OBSERVATIONS.    309 

see  was  another  specimen  of  work  in  steel,  said 
to  have  been  taken  from  one  of  the  infernal 
chambers  of  the  Spanish  Inquisition.  It  was 
a  complex  mechanism,  which  grasped  the  body 
and  the  head  of  the  heretic  or  other  victim,  and 
by  means  of  many  ingeniously  arranged  screws 
and  levers  was  capable  of  pressing,  stretching, 
piercing,  rending,  crushing,  all  the  most  sensitive 
portions  of  the  human  body,  one  at  a  time  or 
many  at  once.  The  famous  Virgin,  whose  em 
brace  drove  a  hundred  knives  into  the  body  of 
the  poor  wretch  she  took  in  her  arms,  was  an 
angel  of  mercy  compared  to  this  masterpiece  of 
devilish  enginery. 

Ingenuity  is  much  better  shown  in  contri 
vances  for  making  our  daily  life  more  comforta 
ble.  I  wa^s  on  the  lookout  for  everything  that 
promised  to  be  a  convenience.  I  carried  out 
two  things  which  seemed  to  be  new  to  the  Lon 
doners  :  the  Star  Razor,  which  I  have  praised  so 
freely,  and  still  find  equal  to  all  my  commenda 
tions  ;  and  the  mucilage  pencil,  which  is  a  very 
handy  implement  to  keep  on  the  writer's  desk  or 
table.  I  found  a  contrivance  for  protecting  the 
hand  in  drawing  corks,  which  all  who  are  their 


310  OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

own  butlers  will  appreciate,  and  luminous  match 
boxes  which  really  shine  brightly  in  the  dark, 
and  that  after  a  year's  usage ;  whereas  one  pro 
fessing  to  shine  by  night,  which  I  bought  in 
Boston,  is  only  visible  by  borrowed  light.  I 
wanted  a  very  fine-grained  hone,  and  inquired 
for  it  at  a  hardware  store,  where  they  kept 
everything  in  their  line  of  the  best  quality.  I 
brought  away  a  very  pretty  but  very  small 
stone,  for  which  I  paid  a  large  price.  The  stone 
was  from  Arkansas,  and  I  need  not  have  bought 
in  London  what  would  have  been  easily  ob 
tained  at  a  dozen  or  more  stores  in  Boston.  It 
was  a  renewal  of  my  experience  with  the  sea- 
foam  biscuit.  "  Know  thyself  "  and  the  things 
about  thee,  and  "  Take  the  good  the  gods  pro 
vide  thee,"  if  thou  wilt  only  keep  thine  eyes 
open,  are  two  safe  precepts. 

Who  is  there  of  English  descent  among  us 
that  does  not  feel  with  Cowper, 

"  England,  with  all  thy  faults,  I  love  thee  still  "  ? 

Our  recently  naturalized  fellow-citizens,  of  a  dif 
ferent  blood  and  different  religion,  must  not  sup 
pose  that  we  are  going  to  forget  our  inborn  love 
for  the  mother  to  whom  we  owe  our  being. 


MISCELLANEOUS  OBSERVATIONS.    311 

Protestant  England  and  Protestant  America  are 
coining  nearer  and  nearer  to  each  other  every 
year.  The  interchange  of  the  two  peoples  is 
more  and  more  frequent,  and  there  are  many 
reasons  why  it  is  likely  to  continue  increasing. 

Hawthorne  says  in  a  letter  to  Longfellow, 
"  Why  don't  you  come  over,  being  now  a  man 
of  leisure  and  with  nothing  to  keep  you  in  Amer 
ica?  If  I  were  in  your  position,  I  think  I 
should  make  my  home  on  this  side  of  the  water, 
—  though  always  with  an  indefinite  and  never- 
to-be-executed  intention  to  go  back  and  die  in 
my  native  land.  America  is  a  good  land  for 
young  people,  but  not  for  those  who  are  past 
their  prime.  ...  A  man  of  individuality  and 
refinement  can  certainly  live  far  more  comforta 
bly  here  —  provided  he  has  the  means  to  live  at 
all  —  than  in  New  England.  Be  it  owned,  how 
ever,  that  I  sometimes  feel  a  tug  at  my  very 
heart-strings  when  I  think  of  my  old  home  and 
friends."  This  was  written  from  Liverpool  in 
1854. 

We  must  not  forget  that  our  fathers  were  ex 
iles  from  their  dearly  loved  native  land,  driven 
by  causes  which  no  longer  exist.  "  Freedom  to 


812     OUR   HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

worship  God  "  is  found  in  England  as  fully  as 
in  America,  in  our  day.  In  placing  the  Atlan 
tic  between  themselves  and  the  Old  World  civil 
izations  they  made  an  enormous  sacrifice.  It  is 
true  that  the  wonderful  advance  of  our  people  in 
all  the  arts  and  accomplishments  which  make 
life  agreeable  has  transformed  the  wilderness 
into  a  home  where  men  and  women  can  live 
comfortably,  elegantly,  happily,  if  they  are  of 
contented  disposition ;  and  without  that  they 
can  be  happy  nowhere.  What  better  provision 
can  be  made  for  a  mortal  man  than  such  as  our 
own  Boston  can  afford  its  wealthy  children  ?  A 
palace  on  Commonwealth  Avenue  or  on  Bea 
con  Street ;  a  country-place  at  Framingham  or 
Lenox ;  a  seaside  residence  at  Nahant,  Beverly 
Farms,  Newport,  or  Bar  Harbor;  a  pew  at 
Trinity  or  King's  Chapel ;  a  tomb  at  Mount 
Auburn  or  Forest  Hills ;  with  the  prospect  of  a 
memorial  stained  window  after  his  lamented  de 
mise,  —  is  not  this  a  pretty  programme  to  offer 
a  candidate  for  human  existence  ? 

Give  him  all  these  advantages,  and  he  will 
still  be  longing  to  cross  the  water,  to  get  back  to 
that  old  home  of  his  fathers,  so  delightful  in 


MISCELLANEOUS  OBSERVATIONS.    313 

itself,  so  infinitely  desirable  on  account  of  its 
nearness  to  Paris,  to  Geneva,  to  Rome,  to  all 
that  is  most  interesting  in  Europe.  The  less 
wealthy,  less  cultivated,  less  fastidious  class  of 
Americans  are  not  so  much  haunted  by  these 
longings.  But  the  convenience  of  living  in  the 
Old  World  is  so  great,  and  it  is  such  a  trial  and 
such  a  risk  to  keep  crossing  the  ocean,  that  it 
seems  altogether  likely  that  a  considerable  cur 
rent  of  re-migration  will  gradually  develop  it 
self  among  our  people. 

Some  find  the  climate  of  the  other  side  of  the 
Atlantic  suits  them  better  than  their  own.  As 
the  New  England  characteristics  are  gradually 
superseded  by  those  of  other  races,  other  forms 
of  belief,  and  other  associations,  the  time  may 
come  when  a  New  Euglander  will  feel  more  as 
if  he  were  among  his  own  people  in  London 
than  in  one  of  our  seaboard  cities.  The  vast 
majority  of  our  people  love  their  country  too 
well  and  are  too  proud  of  it  to  be  willing  to  ex 
patriate  themselves.  But  going  back  to  our  old 
home,  to  find  ourselves  among  the  relatives  from 
whom  we  have  been  separated  for  a  few  genera 
tions,  is  not  like  transferring  ourselves  to  a  land 


314      OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

where  another  language  is  spoken,  and  where 
there  are  no  ties  of  blood  and  no  common  reli 
gious  or  political  traditions.  I,  for  one,  being 
myself  as  inveterately  rooted  an  American  of 
the  Bostonian  variety  as  ever  saw  himself  mir 
rored  in  the  Frog  Pond,  hope  that  the  exchanges 
of  emigrants  and  re-migrants  will  be  much  more 
evenly  balanced  by  and  by  than  at  present.  I 
hope  that  more  Englishmen  like  James  Smithson 
will  help  to  build  up  our  scientific  and  literary 
institutions.  1  hope  that  more  Americans  like 
George  Peabody  will  call  down  the  blessings  of 
the  English  people  by  noble  benefactions  to  the 
cause  of  charity.  It  was  with  deep  feelings  of 
pride  and  gratitude  that  I  looked  upon  the  bust 
of  Longfellow,  holding  its  place  among  the  mon 
uments  of  England's  greatest  and  best  children. 
I  see  with  equal  pleasure  and  pride  that  one  of 
our  own  large-hearted  countrymen  has  honored 
the  memory  of  three  English  poets,  Milton,  and 
Herbert,  and  Cowper,  by  the  gift  of  two  beau 
tiful  stained  windows,  and  with  still  ampler  mu 
nificence  is  erecting  a  stately  fountain  in  the 
birthplace  of  Shakespeare.  Such  acts  as  these 
make  us  feel  more  and  more  the  truth  of  the 


MISCELLANEOUS  OBSERVATIONS.    315 

generous  sentiment  which  closes  the  ode  of 
Washington  Allston,  "America  to  Great  Bri 
tain  :  "  "  We  are  one  !  " 

I  have  told  our  story  with  the  help  of  my 
daughter's  diary,  and  often  aided  by  her  recol 
lections.  Having  enjoyed  so  much,  I  am  desi 
rous  that  my  countrymen  and  countrywomen 
should  share  my  good  fortune  with  me.  I  hesi 
tated  at  first  about  printing  names  in  full,  but 
when  I  remembered  that  we  received  nothing 
but  the  most  overflowing  hospitality  and  the 
most  considerate  kindness  from  all  we  met,  I 
felt  sure  that  I  could  not  offend  by  telling  my 
readers  who  the  friends  were  that  made  Eng 
land  a  second  home  to  us.  If  any  one  of  them 
is  disturbed  by  such  reference  as  I  have  made 
to  him  or  to  her,  I  most  sincerely  apologize  for 
the  liberty  I  have  taken.  I  am  far  more  afraid 
that  through  sheer  forgetfulness  I  have  left  un- 
mentioned  many  to  whom  I  was  and  still  remain 
under  obligations. 

If  I  were  asked  what  I  think  of  people's  trav 
elling  after  the  commonly  accepted  natural  term 
of  life  is  completed,  I  should  say  that  everything 


316      OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

depends  on  constitution  and  habit.  The  old 
soldier  says,  in  speaking  of  crossing  the  Beresina, 
where  the  men  had  to  work  in  the  freezing 
stream  constructing  the  bridges,  "  Faut  du  tem- 
pdrament  pour  cela  !  "  I  often  thought  of  this 
expression,  in  the  damp  and  chilly  weather 
which  not  rarely  makes  English  people  wish 
they  were  in  Italy.  I  escaped  unharmed  from 
the  windy  gusts  at  Epsom  and  the  nipping  chill 
of  the  Kensington  garden-party ;  but  if  a  score 
of  my  contemporaries  had  been  there  with  me, 
there  would  not  improbably  have  been  a  funeral 
or  two  within  a  week.  If,  however,  the  super- 
septuagenarian  is  used  to  exposures,  if  he  is  an 
old  sportsman  or  an  old  officer  not  retired 
from  active  service,  he  may  expect  to  elude  the 
pneumonia  which  follows  his  footsteps  when 
ever  he  wanders  far  from  his  fireside.  But  to 
a  person  of  well-advanced  years  coming  from  a 
counting-room,  a  library,  or  a  studio,  the  risk  is 
considerable,  unless  he  is  of  hardy  natural  con 
stitution  ;  any  other  will  do  well  to  remember, 
"  Faut  du  temperament  pour  cela  !  " 

Suppose  there  to  be  a  reasonable  chance  that 
he  will  come  home  alive,  what  is  the  use  of  one's 


MISCELLANEOUS  OBSERVATIONS.     317 

going  to  Europe  after  his  senses  have  lost  their 
acuteness,  and  his  mind  no  longer  retains  its  full 
measure  of  sensibilities  and  vigor?  I  should 
say  that  the  visit  to  Europe  under  those  circum 
stances  was  much  the  same  thing  as  the  petit 
verre, — the  little  glass  of  Chartreuse,  or  Ma 
raschino,  or  Cura(;oa,  or,  if  you  will,  of  plain 
Cognac,  at  the  end  of  a  long  banquet.  One  has 
gone  through  many  courses,  which  repose  in  the 
safe  recesses  of  his  economy.  He  has  swallowed 
his  coffee,  and  still  there  is  a  little  corner  left 
with  its  craving  unappeased.  Then  comes  the 
drop  of  liqueur,  chasse-cafe,  which  is  the  last 
thing  the  stomach  has  a  right  to  expect.  It 
warms,  it  comforts,  it  exhales  its  benediction  on 
all  that  has  gone  before.  So  the  trip  to  Europe 
may  not  do  much  in  the  way  of  instructing  the 
wearied  and  overloaded  intelligence,  but  it  gives 
it  a  fillip  which  makes  it  feel  young  again  for  a 
little  while. 

Let  not  the  too  mature  traveller  think  it  will 
change  any  of  his  habits.  It  will  interrupt  his 
routine  for  a  while,  and  then  he  will  settle  down 
into  his  former  self,  and  be  just  what  he  was 
before.  I  brought  home  a  pair  of  shoes  I  had 


318     OUR  HUNDRED  DAYS  IN  EUROPE. 

made  in  London ;  they  do  not  fit  like  those  I 
had  before  I  left,  and  I  rarely  wear  them.  It 
is  just  so  with  the  new  habits  I  formed  and  the 
old  ones  I  left  behind  me. 

But  am  I  not  glad,  for  my  own  sake,  that  I 
went  ?  Certainly  I  have  every  reason  to  be,  and 
I  feel  that  the  visit  is  likely  to  be  a  great  source 
of  happiness  for  my  remaining  days.  But  there 
is  a  higher  source  of  satisfaction.  If  the  kind 
ness  shown  me  strengthens  the  slenderest  link 
that  binds  us  in  affection  to  that  ancestral  coun 
try  which  is,  and  I  trust  will  always  be  to  her 
descendants,  "  dear  Mother  England,"  that  alone 
justifies  my  record  of  it,  and  to  think  it  is  so  is 
more  than  reward  enough.  If,  in  addition,  this 
account  of  our  summer  experiences  is  a  source  of 
pleasure  to  many  friends,  and  of  pain  to  no  one, 
as  I  trust  will  prove  to  be  the  fact,  I  hope  I 
need  never  regret  giving  to  the  public  the  pages 
which  are  meant  more  especially  for  readers  who 
have  a  personal  interest  in  the  writer. 


INDEX. 


NOTE  TO  THE  INDEX. 

THERE  are  various  ways  of  reading  a  book.  A  few  diligent 
persons  read,  mark,  learn,  and  inwardly  digest  every  page, 
sentence,  word,  and  syllable.  Quick-witted  students  glance 
through  a  volume,  and  find  in  a  few  moments  what  it  has 
which  is  likely  to  be  of  interest  for  them.  Some  run  their 
eyes  rapidly  over  the  Index,  when  there  is  one,  which  is  no 
more  than  every  book  worth  printing  is  entitled  to.  Some  are 
satisfied  with  the  Table  of  Contents.  Others  find  the  Title- 
page  as  much  as  they  want,  and  there  are  many  books,  the 
wallflowers  of  book-shops  and  libraries,  which  we  are  content 
to  read  by  the  lettering  on  their  backs,  without  calling  them 
out  from  their  places. 

The  following  Index,  made  for  me  under  the  direction  of 
my  Publishers,  frightened  me,  when  I  first  locked  at  it,  by  its 
exhaustiveness  and  its  extent.  I  struck  out  a  few  headings, 
altered  a  few  others,  and  concluded  to  let  it  stand  as  a  monu 
ment  of  industry  and  fidelity.  But  I  must  say  that  so  long  a 
tail  to  so  small  a  kite  is  almost  without  a  precedent  in  my  lit 
erary  experience. 

The  class  of  readers,  however,  who  depend  upon  the  Index 
for  all  they  wish  to  know  about  the  contents  of  a  volume  will 
not  complain  of  its  length  and  minuteness  of  detail.  I  myself 
have  nothing  but  gratitude  to  the  literary  laborer  who  under 
took  the  tedious  task  of  making  it. 


INDEX. 


ArrsRjioo*  tea,  38,  41 ;  at  Mr.  Haw. 
eis's,  62 ;  at  Devonshire  House, 
63  ;  at  Archdeacon  Farrar'a,  94, 

AgMBii,280. 

Alger,  Rev.  Mr.,  385. 

Allchin,  Dr.,  88. 

Alleton,  Washington,  ode  of,  315. 

Alnwick  Castle,  9. 

American  recognized  before  he 
speaks,  198. 

Americans  at  first  sight  of  English 
scenes,  78  ;  their  taste  for  super 
latives,  299. 

Anglo-Saxon  chronicle  quoted,  100. 

Antiquary,  Scott's,  173. 

Anxiety  at  sea,  unavoidable,  22. 

Apple-trees,  292. 

Arabian  Nights  carpet  wished  for, 
244. 

Arago,  255. 

Arcadia,  189,  191. 

Archer,  king  of  the  jockeys,  54,  60. 

Argyll,  Duke  of,  77. 

Argument  with  certain  class  of  minds 
a  lever  without  a  fulcrum,  263. 

Arlintfton  Street  Church,  297. 

Arnold  House,  201. 

Asthma,  15-17  ;  cure  for,  16 

Athenaeum  Club,  303. 

Aurania,  the,  274,  276;  entertain 
ment  on  board,  277. 

Austrian  ambassador,  77. 

Authors,  anew  generation  of,  57,  58. 

Autobiography,  11,  279. 

Avon,  the,  140,  151,  192. 

BACON,  Miss,  insane  attempt  of,  145. 
B.icon,  Roger,  his  study  at  Oxford, 

1-22. 

Barclay,  Mr.,  12f,,  128. 
Barnum,  Mr.,  139. 
Base-ball,   relative   importance  of, 

142. 
Bath,  161-164, ;  Grand  Pump-Room 


Hotel,   161  ;     old  Roman    baths, 

161  ;  shops  in,  for  slender  pur-i-«, 

162  ;  spoken  of  by  Macaulay,  163  ; 
number  of    visitor*,   163;  abbey 
church  sculpturoa,  164. 

Beach,  Dr.,  2.8. 

Beeches,  292. 

Bellows,  Mr.  John,  61,  177,  301. 

Bemerton,  168  ;  church,  193. 

Benjamin  of  Tudela,  '2.1  'J. 

Benson,  Mrs.,  at  Lambeth  Palace, 
110. 

Beresina,  old  soldier's  saying  about, 
316. 

Berwick  on  Tweed,  9. 

Birthday  cake,  277. 

Birth-year,  66. 

Blenheim,  its  Titians,  8. 

Boats,  fearful  possibilities  suggested 
by,  23,  277. 

Bodleian  Librarf ,  122,  123. 

Book-shop,  Quaritch's,  224,  225; 
feelings  on  entering,  226. 

Books,  rare,  226;  prices  of,  227, 
2-28. 

Boston,  brightness  of,  remarked  by 
Dickens,  34 ;  State  House  dome, 
57  ;  blessed  centre  of  New  England 
life,  100 ;  provisions  for  its  wealthy 
children,  312. 

Boston  Theatre,  accident  at,  46. 

Boteler,  Dr.,  quoted  about  the  straw 
berry,  258. 

Boulogne,  -'!'.. 

Box,  a  valued  daily  companion,  19, 
M, 

Bradley,  Dean,  tea  with,  44. 

Breakfast,  least  convenient  time  of 
visiting,  38  ;  at  St.  John's  College, 
Cambridge,  119;  at  York,  l'J5  ; 
at  Parisian  cafg,  266. 

Briggs,  Mr,  adventures  of,  com 
pared  with  Mr.  Pickwick's,  248. 

Bright,  Mr.  John,  131,  133,  134. 


322 


INDEX. 


Brighton.  201-206  ;  built  for  enjoy 
ment,  202  ;  South  Downs,  203. 

British  Museum,  how  not  to  see  it, 
231  ;  Elgin  Marbles,  232 ;  sculp 
tures  from  Nineveh,  233 ;  lesson 
learned  from  a  visit  to,  233  ;  how 
to  see  it,  233,  234. 

Britons  once  looked  on  as  enemies, 
282. 

Brooke,  Rev.  Stopford,  301. 

Brown,  Professor  Alexander  Crum, 
126. 

Brown,  Dr.  John,  127  ;  his  sister, 
127. 

Browning,  Robert,  41,  56,  61,  103, 
131,  135  ;  a  vital  element  of  Lon 
don  society,  84. 

Browning,  Mr.  Oscar,  118. 

Brummel,  247. 

Bryce,  James,  82. 

Buncle,  John,  279. 

Bunker  Hill  battle,  ignorance  con 
cerning,  141. 

Bunyan,  285. 

Burns,  285. 

Butler,  Lady  Eleanor,  285. 

CALAIS,  10  ;  all  Sterne,  247. 

Cambridge,  visit  to,  108-110  ;  rooms 
in  Trinity,  108  ;  relationship  with, 
109  ;  second  visit,  113-120 ;  degree 
of  Doctor  of  Letters,  114;  de 
monstrative  students,  115 ;  cordial 
reception  at,  11G ;  extract  from 
Latin  speech,  115  ;  leaves  delight 
ful  impression,  117 ;  the  boats, 
117 ;  the  river,  117 ;  library  of 
Trinity  College,  117  ;  King's  Col 
lege  chapel,  117,118;  dinner  at 
Vice-Chancellor's,  118;  hospitali 
ties,  118  ;  breakfast  at  St.  John's 
college,  119 ;  verses  from  poem, 
120. 

Cambridge,  New  England,  109. 

Camperdown,  Lady,  62. 

Canterbury,  Archbishop  of,  110. 

Caricature,  good,  a  work  of  genius, 

Caricatures  in  "  Punch,"  63,  64. 

Carlyle,  209-211,  214  ;  his  house  at 
Chelsea,  208,  209,  214 ;  on  Cole 
ridge  in  Life  of  Sterling,  213 ;  his 
meddling  with  our  anti-slavery 
conflict,  213  ;  his  wife,  214. 

Carriages,  of  friends,  41,  42  ;  wait 
ing  for,  after  a  party,  69. 

Catalogues,  literature  of,  224; 
Quaritch's,  227. 

Caterpillars,  292. 

Cavendish,  Lady  Edward,  63. 


Cedar  of  Lebanon,  290. 

Cellar,  once  the  surface,  161. 

Cephalonia,  the,  19. 

"  Chambered  Nautilus,"  84. 

Changed  conditions,  2-4. 

Channel,  passage  of,  243,  273. 

Charles  the  First,  opening  of  his 
coffin,  147. 

Charles  River  not  more  real  than 
the  Avon,  201. 

Chester,  27,  28  ;  daisies,  28  ;  cathe 
dral,  29. 

Cheyne,  Sir  John,  183. 

Cheyne  Walk  and  Row  at  Chelsea, 
208. 

Chichester  Cathedral,  spire  of,  180. 

Chinese  punishment,  136. 

Church,  what  one  brings  away  from, 

Clarendon  Park,  168. 

Class,  meeting  of,  169. 

Claude  Lorraine,  194  ;  pictures  at 
Longford  Castle,  194. 

Clift,  Mr.  William,  6,  9. 

Cobbe,  Miss  Frances  Power,  62,  84. 

Coleridge,  Lord  and  Lady,  136. 

Coleridge,  what  he  says  of  Johnson, 
212  ;  his  conversation  as  reported 
by  Dibdin,  212  ;  De  Quincey's  ad 
miration  of,  212 ;  Carlyle's  por 
trait  of,  213. 

Colonial  Exhibition,  237. 

Comfort,  provisions  for,  20,  21. 

Company  on  board  ship.  21. 

Complexions  of  English  children, 
33. 

Compton,  Lady  William,  148,  150. 

Compton  Wynyate,  excursion  to, 
148 ;  a  study  for  the  antiquarian, 
148 ;  its  name,  149. 

Concert,  69,  70. 

Conversation,  305,  306. 

Courbet,  265. 

Courier-maid,  17. 

Cowper,  255,  285. 

Craigenputtock,  Emerson  at,  211. 

"Cranford,"  Mrs.  Gaskell's,  163. 

"  Crichton,  the  Admirable,"  190. 

Cuckoo,  heard  at  Windsor,  75 ;  of  the 
poets,  75 ;  Wordsworth's,  78,  293. 

Cunningham,  Dr.  George,  120. 

Cuvier,  272. 

DAISIES,  28,  29. 
Dalhousie,  Lady,  56. 
D'Arblay,  Madame,  135. 
Darwin,  66. 
Darwinism,  3. 
Dawkins,  Mr.  Boyd,  280. 
Day,  a,  of  rich  experience,  77. 


INDEX. 


323 


In  right  ear  of  sporting 
men,  88. 

Death-warrant  of  Charles  F 

Degree  at  Cambridge,  lir>;  at  Klin- 
burgh.  127  ;  at  Oxford,  133,  134. 

Derby  day,  8,  46 ;    of  year  1 

4'.i  ;  Gladstone's  impression  of, 
47  ;  Dore's  exclamation,  47  ;  the 
horses,  50 ;  the  race,  53,  &4 ;  rec 
ollections,  60 ;  weather,  287. 

Devizes,  285. 

Devonshire  House,  63. 

Diary,  13  ;  extracta  from,  70, 71,  76, 
86,  11 

Dictionary,  French  and  English,  61. 

DifftTi-nre  in  use  of  language,  219, 
220 ;  of  scale,  219. 

Digby,  Sir  Keuelui,  87 ;  his  ancestor, 
87. 

Dinner,  at  Lady  Harcourt's,36;  the 
full-blown  flower  of  social  life,  40 ; 
at  American  Minister's,  56,  76  ; 
Sir  William  H  m-ourt'a,  64  ;  Arch 
deacon  Farrar's,  86 ;  Literary 
Club,  94 ;  at  Mr.  Lowell's,  100- 
102  ;  Sir  Henry  Thompson's,  103; 
political  matters  not  talked  of, 
113;  at  Vice-Chancellor  Jowett's, 
118,  136;  with  Dean  of  Salisbury, 
185  ;  dinner-parties  like  those  at 
home,  305  ;  conversation  at,  305.  ' 

Dinners  in  Paris,  267. 

Dixwell,  John,  79  ;  his  descendants, 
79. 

Dogmatists,  three,  211. 

Dor«5,  Gustave,  47,  ."4. 

Domesday  Book,  99,  100. 

Dresser,  Dr.,  223. 

Drury  Lane  Theatre,  62,  111,  112. 

Dryden  quoted,  6. 

Dudley  House,  89. 

Du  Maurier,  101. 

Duplicates  met  in  London,  300. 

EAST  INDIAN  lady,  85  ;  her  children's 
salaam  to  the  Princess  Louise,  85. 

East  winds,  59. 

Eaton  Hall,  29 ;  its  vastness,  30 ; 
its  stables,  31. 

Ecclefechan,  210. 

Eclipse,  portrait  of,  60. 

Economist,  the  brig,  brief  parley 
with,  307. 

Edge  worth,  Miss,  her  "  L'Amie  In- 
connue,"  302. 

Edinburgh,  fascination  of,  9, 10, 126 ; 
degree  of  LL.  D.,  127;  speech, 
1-N  ;  former  rambles  in,  129  ;  Sal 
isbury  Crags,  129. 

Ellicott,  Bishop  and  Mrs.,  02. 


Kim,  in  irround*  of  M;iu'd:ilon  Col 
lege,  !-':>.  l-l  ;  on  Boston  Com 
mon,  123;  at  Spring!!.-!-!,  121. 

Elms,  at  LoiiLjtVllow's  house,  105; 
English,  at  Lowell's,  M.". :  «\  V-w 
Kn-bnd,  12:$  ;  of  OH  in. 
KM- l.uid,  comparison  of.  •-"."I.  '-"'1  ; 
not  long-lived,  _".H  ;  hint  of  atyp- 
i.-.il  dill, -it-iire  in  the  American 
and  tli.'  Kni;lishman,  291. 

Klst-w,  285. 

Emerson,  Mr.,  15,  100, 192,  193,  211. 

England,  fifty  years  ago,  1  ;  first 
impivs-sions  of,  32,  33;  climate  in 
May  and  June,  59,  85,  287  ;  loot 
ing  by  William's  "  twenty  thou 
sand  thieves,"  100  ;  sympathy  of, 
with  slave-holding  St  ites  in  the 
War  of  Secession,  282  ;  soil  of, 
287  ;  fossils,  288 ;  relics  of  differ 
ent  peoples,  288  ;  a  campo  santo, 
289. 

Euglands,  twenty  different,  286. 

English,  county  houses,  177  ;  flsta, 
205;  people  compared  with  New 
Engenders,  294  ;  feeling  for  the 
hat,  295,  296;  B^ranger's  lines 
quoted,  295. 

Entertainments  on  first  visit,  five 
in  number,  9. 

Epitaph,  Ben  Jensen's,  182, 183;  at 
South  Downs,  2(4. 

Epsom,  Derby  day  at,  8,  46,  48,  49- 
55  ;  special  train,  51  ;  grand  stand, 
f>-j  ;  luncheon,  ."• ;  windy  gusts  at, 
59,  316. 

Erasmus,  portrait  of,  by  Hans  Hol 
bein,  195,  300. 

Europe,  first  visit  to,  4-9;  risk  of 
the  trip  in  advanced  years,  316; 
benefits  of  visit  to,  317. 

Exclusiveness  has  its  conveniences, 
•JH;. 

Exposure  required  to  make  images 
permanent,  154,  300. 

FALSTAFF  quoted,  38. 

Farrar,  Archdeacon,  79,  86 ;   guide 

at   Westminster  Abbey,   89,  92; 

sermon,  110. 
Farriugford,  visit  to  Tennyson  at, 

104. 

Fauna,  the  native,  293. 
Feeling  between  England  and  Amer- 

i.  a.  281,  282,  310,  311. 
"  Field,  The,"  quoted,  46,  47,  49. 
Fleet  Street,  236. 
Flower,  Mr.  Charles  E.,  138,  143. 
Flower,  Mrs.  Cyril,  56.  M. 
Flower,  Mr.  Edgar,  144. 


324 


INDEX. 


Flower,  Professor  W.  H.,  102. 

Flowers,  wild,  292. 

Flying  Childers,  GO. 

Fog,  276  ;  whistle,  277. 

Food,  307,  308  ;  graduated  scale  of, 
308. 

Forty  days'  fasting,  stories  of,  182. 

Foster,  Birket,  his  pictures  of  Eng 
lish  landscape,  32. 

Fothergill,  Dr.  J.  Milner,  240. 

Fothergill,  Dr.  John,  Franklin's  en 
comium  of,  240. 

Foucault's  grand  experiment,  252, 
2t>3. 

Fox,  Dr.  Wilson,  304. 

France,  the,  of  Louis  Philippe,  1 ; 
from  Boulogne  to  Paris,  unat 
tractive,  247  ;  our  friend  in  hour 
of  need,  272. 

Fruits,  early,  loss  of.  compensated, 
258,  259. 

GAIRDNER,  Professor,  301. 

Galileo,  in  Cathedral  of  Pisa,  253. 

Galton,  Francis,  300. 

Gambetta,  Le"on  Michel,  257. 

Garden  parties,  formidable,  85. 

Garden  party  at  Kensington  Pal 
ace,  84-86. 

Gifts,  on  leaving  Boston,  19. 

Gilman,  Mr.  Arthur,  297. 

Gilmour,  Mr.  David,  301. 

Gilpin  liked,  in  a  forest  landscape, 
the  donkey  better  than  the  horse, 

Gladstone  said  to  think  himself  too 
old  to  cross  the  ocean,  14,  66  ;  at 
Epsom  races,  47  ;  military  aspect 
at  Lady  Rosebery'p,  66;  speech 
on  Irish  question,  96. 

Gladstone,  Mrs.,  65. 

Glasgow,  10. 

Gloucester  and  Bristol,  Bishop  of, 
81. 

Goldsmith,  Oliver,  235,  236,  248. 

Gorges,  Sir  Thomas,  184,  185  ;  as 
sociations  with  his  name,  184. 

Goschen,  Mr.,  77. 

Gosse,  Edmund,  80  ;  at  Cambridge, 
108. 

Gower,  Lord  Ronald,  80. 

Granville,  Lady,  42 ;  Lord,  47. 

Gray,  Professor,  280. 

Great  Malvern,  154,  156 ;  ascent  of 
the  Beacon,  155. 

Grisi,  7. 

Grosvenor  House,  pictures  at,  81. 

Gull,  Sir  William,  40. 

HAHNEMANN,  154,  263. 


Halford,  Sir  Henry,  147. 

Halle,  John,  186. 

Hamilton,  Lady  Claude,  70. 

"  Haousen  "  for  houses,  244. 

Harcourt,  Lady,  36,  41,  63,  274. 

Harcourt,  Sir  William,  64,  65; 
rooms  at  Cambridge,  108. 

Harford,  Canon,  sermon  of,  in 
Westminster  Abbey,  44. 

Hartington,  Lord,  63. 

Harvard  College,  11,  109;  the  au 
thor  professor  at,  for  thirty-five 
years,  11,  151. 

Hastings,  battle  of,  99. 

Hathaway,  Anre,  cottage  of,  148, 199. 

Haweis,  Rev.  H.  R.,  16,  42,  62,  81. 

Hawthorn,  in  Windsor  Park,  73,  74 ; 
love-tale  under,  74. 

Hawthorne,  letter  to  Longfellow, 
311. 

Hedges  in  place  of  rail  fences  and 
stone  walls,  33. 

Heitland,  Mr.,  poem  at  St.  John's, 
Cambridge,  120. 

Herbert  family,  182. 

Herbert,  George,  1G8, 191-194  ;  Life, 
by  Izaak  Walton,  193. 

Herbert,  Gladys  (Lady  Lonsdale 
and  Lady  de  Grey),  70. 

Herkomer,  Hubert,  121. 

Herschel,  Lord  Chancellor,  56,  131. 

Hicks-Beach,  Sir  Michael,  96. 

Highlands,  the,  10. 

Holland,  Lady,  62;  our  guardian 
angel,  86. 

Holland,  Sir  Henry,  14. 

Holme  Castle,  157 ;  meaning  of 
name,  157. 

Holmes,  Mr.,  Queen's  librarian,  225. 

Holmes,  Rear  Admiral  Charles,  6. 

Home,  remembrances  of,  172,  173 ; 
safe  arrival  at,  278. 

Homes,  of  England,  177  ;  few  such 
in  America,  178. 

Homesickness  hereafter,  258. 

Homoeopathy,  traces  of,  still  sur 
vive,  154. 

Horse-chestnut  trees,  291. 

Horse  -  subduer  an  honorable  epi 
thet,  31. 

Horses,  at  Eaton  Hall,  31,  32  ;  at 
Epsom,  49,  50,  53,  54  ;  pictures  of, 
8,  49,  60  ;  of  London,  293  ;  Eng 
land  the  Paradise  of,  293. 

Houghton,  Lord,  66,  88,  283. 

House  of  Commons,  95,  97,  98. 

Houses,  wooden,  a  better  kind  of 
wigwam,  30. 

Howe,  Mrs.,  her  Bank  of  Benevo 
lence,  263. 


INDEX. 


325 


HnMy  and  7.4:1. -.  71. 

Mr.  H..IIUUI,  til. 

Hunting  in  couple*,  instructive,  231. 
Hyd,-  1'ii-k.  215.  216. 
Hydrophobia,  262,  263, 

ICED  water  and  ice-cream,  English 
notions  about.  42. 

Imagination,  less  to  work  on  in  tin- 
New  World,  I'.''.'. 

Impression,  tii  •  >«T  to  be 

repeated,  31 

Invit:ition-t,  30,  .^s  :   Usucd. 

Irving,  Henry,  at  Lyceum   ! 

Irving's  emotions    on    seeing    Mr. 
Itinerary,  motive  for,  281. 

JACKSON,  Dr.  James,  301. 

Junes,  H.  nrv.  Ml. 

Japanese  exhibition  in  Boston,  238. 

Jerusalem  Chamber,  44,  45. 

Johnson,  Dr.,  quoted,  122  ;  his 
h  ir-h  opinions  about  Americans, 
211.  212:  Coleridge's  assertion 
concerning,  212;  Boswell's,  236  ; 
house  in  Bolt  Court,  230. 

Jones,  E.  Burnt-,  101. 

Jouifroy,  2M,  2.V..  257. 

Jowett,  Dr.,  V ice-Chancellor  of  Ox 
ford,  130,  130.  1ST. 

July  Fourth  remembered,  143. 

June  Seventeenth,  why  memorable, 
114. 

KEELKT'S  motor,  drawings  of,  42. 
Kensal  Green  Cemetery,  274. 
Kensington  Palace,  84,  85,  287. 
Kidder,  Bishop  and  his  wife,  285. 
King  George  Third,  282. 
King  William  Fourth,  7. 
Knox,  Dr.  Robert,  9;  bis  "Races 
of  Men  "  quoted,  99. 

LADIES,  old  English,  161. 
Lambeth,  1M. 
Land,  first  sight  of,  26. 
Lang,  Mr.,  101. 

>wne  House,  43. 
Lark,   emotions  on   neither  seeing 

nor  hearing,  175,  176,  293. 
"  Last  Leaf,  The,"  58. 
Latin  speech  at  Cambridge  quoted, 

115. 

Lawrence,  Mr.  Abbott,  216. 
Layard,  Sir  Henry,  41,  233. 
Lear  quoted,  21. 
Lebrun,  Charles,  figures  of,  64. 
Lechmere,  Sir  Edmund,  159. 


.  Judpp  Richard,  his  house 
in  Cambridge  t  M  \m.)t  Kit). 

Lfi-liin.-rr's  Point,  now  East  Cam 
bridge,  10). 

Leech,  John,  compared  with  Dick 
ens,  248. 

l.in.i.-iiN  289. 

a,  4. 

:  y  Club,  94. 

Liverpool,  2G,  34 ;  visitors,  275 ; 
in  ..!,•!,  of  ship.-,  ;ind  iioai-. 

Llaiigollen,  Vale  ol. 

Locker,  Frederick,  1)4,  103,  104. 

Lonil)  ir.lv  poplar,  2'.»2. 

London,  5,  G,  34-45  ;  our  home  in, 
;r> ;  round  of  social  «-in,':i.-fiin-iit... 
M.  :'.7,  84;  grand  oM  1..  !s.  »,  4"'. 
41  ;  professional  friends,  40 ;  re 
ceptions,  42,  43,  5(5,  G5,  82 ;  official 
r.-rcj.tion-,  r,."i.  i,7;  dinners,  66, 
tH.  7f,,  8G,  94,  1(X»,  l(i:J;  p-irk», 
•J15,  'JIG;  social  geography  of, 
215;  ihon,  221,  222,  •_"->S;  book 
stores,  •_•_•»,  226;  tim.-  necessary 
!  for  study  of,  'J37  ;  a  place  of  mys 
teries,  241 ;  the  day's  employ 
ments,  243  ;  common  sights  dra- 
nrxtic,  -H;  no  person  knows  it, 
•_•»:.;  r.-tuni  to,  273;  this  Monu 
ment,  'JT:; ;  \v,-  t:!i, T  in,  '-S7  ;  gen- 
t l-:.i. 'ii  well  dressed,  295;  last 
\iMfr  in,  271;  rlnbs,  303. 

"  London  Morning  Post "  quoted,  49, 
50. 

Lonely  feeling  in  the  midst  of  a  new 
generation  of  authors,  58. 

Longfellow  in  Westminster  Abbey, 
90,  314. 

Longford  Castle,  185,  194  ;  remem 
brances  of,  194,  19G;  wonderful 
steel  chair,  196. 

Lome,  Marquis  of,  70,  77. 

Louis,  his  name  a  dim  legend,  250. 

Louis  Philippe,  1.  2  to.  271. 

Louvre,  Gallery  of,  259,  260,  271. 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  100, 101, 131, 
280,  3(15. 

Luncheon,  a  convenient  affair,  38 ; 
at  Cambridge,  113;  at  Oxford, 
135. 

Luncheons,  41,  43,  55,  61,  62,  79,  81, 
84,86. 

Lyceum  Theatre,  45. 

MACALISTEB,    Professor    Alexander 

an-l  Mrs.,  113,  118. 
Macalister,   Dr.   Donald,   113,   118, 

119. 

Mackenzie,  Dr.  Morell,  303. 
Magdalen    College,     Oxford,    123; 


326 


INDEX. 


great  elm,  124  ;  Addison's  favorite 

walk,  124. 

Mai  vein,  abbey  church  of,  159. 
Man  a  sporting  animal,  8. 
Manners,  52,  53. 
Marathon,  mound  at,  298. 
Martineau,  Dr.,  301. 
Matches,  222,  223  ;  boxes,  310. 
Mathews,  8. 

May,  the  English,  55,  59. 
McLane,  minister,  249. 
Medlar-tree,  120. 
Memorials  of  places,  299. 
Memories,  old,  the  pleasing  task  of 

reviving,  250,  257. 
Merritt,  Mrs.,  46. 
Michael,   Grand    Duke    of    Russia, 

70. 

Microscope,  251. 
Mildmay,  Mrs.,  41. 
Millaia,  Sir  John,  86. 
Miller,  Hugh,  288. 
Milton,  quoted,  74  ;  gift  in  memory 

of,  314. 

Miraiidola,  190. 
Mompesson,    Rev.    Mr.    and   wife, 


Monoliths,  Egyptian,  298. 

Monument,  by  wretched  widow, 
158 ;  commemorating  the  great 
fire  in  London,  273,  274  ;  to  Duke 
of  York,  297 ;  to  Nelson,  297  ;  of 
Bunker  Hill,  298  ;  at  Washington, 
298,  299. 

Moore,  Mrs.  Bloomfield,  41. 

Miiller,  Professor  Max,  121,  136. 

Mustard,  boards  advertising,  286. 

NAMES,  magic  of,  122. 

Napoleon,  tomb  of,  265,  26G ;  Bar- 
bier's  bitter  satire  on,  265. 

National  Gallery,  confused  impres 
sions  from,  231. 

Nature,  a  caricaturist,  64  ;  does  not 
care  to  mend  old  shoes,  281  ;  fond 
of  trios,  211. 

Nevins,  Dr.,  26. 

New  England,  old  houses  in,  28 ; 
landscape,  33  ;  geological  objects, 
288  ;  Indian  relics,  288. 

New  Englander  at  home  in  London, 
313. 

Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  engraving  of, 
110. 

New  York,  arrival  at,  277. 

Nightingale,  Mr.,  176,  177. 

Nobleman,  seclusion  and  subter 
ranean  palace  of,  241. 

Northampton,  Marquis  of,  148. 

Norton,  Mr.,  280,  283. 


OAK  at  Beverly,  Mass.,  73. 

Oaks,  in  park  at  Windsor,  72 ;  and 
elms,  289. 

Obelisk,  of  Luxor,  2,  269  ;  built  up 
obeliisks,  298. 

Objects  of  visits,  4,  18. 

O'Byrne,  the  Irish  giant,  102,  103. 

Ocean,  solitude  of,  22. 

Old  civilizations,  deeply  buried,  161. 

Oliphant,  Mr.,  101. 

Orchids,  pink,  71. 

Ormonde,  winner  of  the  Derby,  50, 
53,  54;  picture  of,  60. 

Osgood,  Mr.  James  R.,  242. 

Oxford,  visit  to,  120-125  ;  Bodleian 
Library,  123  ;  trees  in  grounds  of 
Magdalen,  123,  124;  second  visit 
to,  130-137  ;  degree  conferred  by, 
133,  134;  academic  dress,  132; 
luncheon  at  All  Souls,  135. 

PAGANINI,  the  English,  7  ;  the  real, 
8. 

Paget,  Minnie  Stevens,  70. 

Paget,  Sir  James,  40,  62. 

Palaces,  marble,  are  artificial  cav 
erns,  30. 

Palgrave,  Mr.,  79. 

Pantheon,  252. 

Papers,  these,  for  whom  written,  57, 
58,  279,  280,  318. 

Paris,  2,  14,  247-272;  lodgings  in 
house  undergoing  renovations, 
248  ;  in  the  dead  season,  dull  and 
torpid,  248,  270,  271 ;  Place  Ven- 
d6me,  248,  264;  visit  to  former 
haunts,  250,  251,  254;  Cafe"  Pro- 
cope  and  its  frequenters,  254-257  ; 
pictures  in  the  Louvre  remem 
bered,  2GO  ;  Museum  of  the  HOtel 
Cluny,  260 ;  Notre  Dame,  261 ; 
seen  in  life's  morning  and  in  its 
twilight,  266,  267 ;  restaurants, 
267;  Palais  Royal  shops,  268; 
bridges,  268  ;  three  objects  always 
to  be  met  on  the  Pont  Neuf ,  268 ; 
Champs  Elype'es,  269 ;  the  Bois  do 
Boulogne,  269,  270  ;  Place  de  la 
Concorde,  269  ;  Tuileries.  ruins  of, 
271. 

Parliament  Houses,  visit  to,  79. 

Parr,  Thomas,  14. 

Pascal,  255. 

Passengers,  21. 

Pasteur,  M.,  visit  to,  261,  262;  his 
patients,  264. 

Patti,  70. 

Peabody,  George,  314. 

Peel,  Mr.,  speaker  of  the  House, 
79. 


INDEX. 


327 


Pembroke,  Earl  of,  191. 

I 

Pfeiffer,  Mrs.,  61. 

Phelps,  Mr.,  American  Minister,  42, 
:.!,:.r,,  76. 

Phelps,  Mrs.,  77,  86. 

Phi  Beta  Kappa  ribbons,  132. 

Philomathean  Society,  banquet,  276. 

Picture  of  1  uly  by  Sir  Josh  . 

Pictures  at  Blenheim,  8  ;  Qrosvenor 
House,  81 ;  in  r.ms,  'JO). 

Pierce,  Kutli. 

l'iUrmii.,'"S  -Jcv4,  285. 

Piron,  2.">7. 

Plenipotentiary,  winner  of  the  Der 
by,  8,  4l».  r-'i." 

Poems,  unwritten,  151. 

Poetry  associated  with  English  scen 
ery,  74,  75. 

Poets,  and  trees,  106  ;  as  readers  of 
their  own  verses,  107 ;  stained 
windows  in  memory  of,  314. 

Poissardes  and  potroleajes,  _7_. 

Poisson,  255. 

Policemen.  J.'l 

Politician,  the  bitterest,  met,  306. 

Pollock,  Mrs.,  36. 

Ponce  de  Leon,  fountain  of,  257. 

Ponsonby,  Miss,  285. 

Pope  quoted,  274. 

PorpoU 

Poultry  Cross,  186. 

Priestley,  Dr.  and  Mrs. ,  40,  43,  83, 
•J'-.l,  304. 

Priii  -e  Albert  Victor,  51,  65. 

Prince  Christian,  53,  13~>. 

Prince  of  Wale.*,  51,52,  70. 

Princes,  special  accouiplisbjnent  of, 
52. 

Princess  Christian,  135. 

Princess  Louise,  51,  70,  84. 

Princess  of  Wales.  51,  70  ;  her  al 
bum,  84. 

Pugin,  186. 

"  Punch,"  G3,  64,  308. 

QUARITCH,  Mr.,  224,  225 ;  extract* 
from  his  catalogues,  227,  228. 

Queen's  birthday,  G4. 

Queenstown,  2G. 

Question  suggested,  by  presence  of 
a  great  surgeon,  152  ;  by  a  flue 
work  of  art,  240. 

RABELAIS,  195;  club,  88,  89,  303. 
Rabies  humana,  a  Parisian  distem 
per,  264. 

Radnor,  Earl  of,  185. 
Raphael,  disinterment  of,  146. 
Rathbone,  Mr.,  26,  31. 


Readers,  a  new  generation  of,  57. 

.!,  .T"\\d   .a,   07 ;  of    June 

li.-i  ...Million,  three  grades  of,  illus 
trated  by  a  supposed  meeting  of 
philosophical  instruments,  217, 
2  is. 

Refonn  club,  303. 

a,  Mr,  296. 

'011088,   160. 

i-tf,  M  irk  Twain's  ascent  of, 
166. 

Ritchie,  Mrs.,  61. 

Rosebery,  Lady,  64,  67,  68-71. 
;  Rosebery,  Lord,  43,  50. 

Koths  •hil.l.  Lvly,  50,  G9. 

Roubiliac's  monument  to  Mrs. 
Nightingale,  183. 

Royal  Academy  exhibition,  231 . 

Royal  College  of  Surgeons,  102. 
j  Roze,  Marie,  in  "  Carmen,"  111. 
1  Rubinstein,  84. 

Ruskin,  John,  138,  194,  199,  283. 

Russell,  Mr.,  26,  -'7:.. 

Russian  ambassador,  97. 

SAIUT  MARTINS-IN-TIIE-FIELDS,  297. 

Salem  Village,  l'J9. 

Salisbury,  165-201  ;  Cathedral,  165, 
166,  107,  181,  185,  197, 201  ;  Close, 
105,  100,  172,  185,  187  ;  epitaph 
on  native  of,  168  ;  spire,  178-181, 
200;  monuments,  181,  184;  for 
merly  unhealthy,  186;  memories 
of  week  in,  200,  201. 

Sarum,  108,  170,  187,  188. 

Saturday  Club,  2,  94. 

Savonarola,  subject  of  poem  heard 
at  Oxford,  134,  135. 

Saxon  race  trodden  down  by  the 
Norman,  100. 

Schliemaun,  233. 

Schoolmistresses,  C3. 

Scotland,  9,  130  ;  psalmody  of,  130. 

Seances,  2i3. 

Sears,  Mr.  Montgomery,  274. 

Secretary,  36,  37. 

Selborn»,  159,  284. 

Sewall,  Mr.,  26,  275. 
1  Shakespeare,  cuckoo  of,  75;   house 
at    Stratford,  139,  199 ;  memorial 
buildings,  143  ;  new  epithets   for, 
144  ;    why    remains    of,  not   dis 
turbed,  145,  140. 
I  Shaving  made  easy,  24,  25. 
|  Shelley  quoted,  27. 

Shenstone,  epigram  of,  105. 

Shepherd  of  Salisbury  Plain,  169. 

Shop-windows,  221,  222,  268. 

Sibyl,  letter  of,  to  the  Queen,  43. 


328 


INDEX. 


Sidney,  Sir  Philip,  189, 190 ;  portrait 
of,  192. 

Skeleton  of  Irish  giant,  103. 

Smalley,  Mr.  G.  W.,  68,  101. 

Smith,  Mrs.,  56. 

Smith,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Goldwin,  202. 

Smith,  Mr.  Soden,  239. 

Smith,  Sydney,  quoted,  81,  102. 

Smith,  Mr.  William,  301. 

Smithson,  Mr.  James,  314. 

South  Downs,  mutton,  203 ;  clergy 
man,  203 ;  church,  204. 

South  Kensington  Museum,  238, 
239  ;  column  of  Trajan,  239  ;  shrine 
of  female  saint,  239. 

Speech,  demanded  by  students,  116, 
128 ;  Gladstone's,  96. 

Stafford  House,  80. 

Stanley,  Dean,  283. 

Stanley,  Hon.  Lyulph,  62. 

Stanley,  Lady,  G2. 

Stanley,  Mr.,  9. 

Star  razor,  25,  309. 

Steel,  chair  at  Longford  castle,  196, 
308;  work  in,  from  Spanish  In 
quisition,  309. 

Steeple  of  Central  Church,  Boston, 
296,  297. 

Stephen,  Mr.  Leslie,  101. 

Sterling  Castle,  Links  of  Forth 
from,  9. 

Sterne,  10,  247. 

Stokes,  Professor,  113. 

Stonehenge,  1G8-175 ;  "The  Broken 
Circle,"  169-172;  literature  of, 
173;  mechanical  problem,  174, 
175. 

St.  Paul's,  monuments,  230  ;  dome, 
230. 

Strasbourg,  statue  of,  269. 

Stratford-on-Avon,  9,  90;  visit  to, 
138-147;  children  at,  140,  141; 
Church  of  Holy  Trinity,  143; 
bridge,  144  ;  charnel-house,  145  ; 
a  week  at,  153 ;  hot  days  at,  287  ; 
reminiscence  claiming  precedence, 
151 ;  question  suggested  by  pre 
sence  of  a  great  surgeon,  152. 

Strawberry,  the,  258. 

Supper,  at  Foreign  Office,  71  ;  at 
Drury  Lane  Theatre,  111. 

Surgery,  extraordinary  success  in, 
151,  152. 

Sutherland,  Duke  of,  81. 

Swanwick,  Mrs.  Anna,  61. 

Swinburne,  Mr.,  213. 

TADEMA,  Alma,  101. 
Tait,  Lawson,  151-153. 
Tea,  38,  42, 103. 


Teachers,  outgrown,  251. 

Telescope,  Herschel's,  8. 

Temple,  the,  234,  235;  crusaders' 
monuments,  235. 

Tenniel,  101. 

Tennyson,  Lord,  66;  visit  to,  103- 
108. 

Tennyson,  Lady,  104. 

Tennyson,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hallarn, 
104,  108. 

Terry,  Ellen,  45. 

Tewkesbury,  excursion  to,  156 ;  ab 
bey  church,  157,  180  ;  old  houses, 
157. 

Thackeray,  story  quoted,  52. 

Thompson,  Rev.  Wm.  Hepworth, 
Master  of  Trinity,  109,  110. 

Thompson,  Sir  Henry,  103. 

Titles,  sound  of,  pleasant,  184, 185. 

Tower,  the,  6,  229. 

Townsend,  Mr.,  101. 

Travellers  of  advanced  years,  316, 
317. 

Trees,  33,  159,  289-292;  soothing 
companionship  of,  105,  106 ;  Ten 
nyson's,  290. 

Trios,  nature  fond  of,  211. 

Turkish  ambassador,  55. 

Tussaud,  Madame,  273. 

Tyndall,  Mr.,  2,  86. 

Types,  repetition  of,  299,  300. 

UMBRELLA  in  London  and  in  Paris, 
287. 

Underwood,  F.  H.,  Consul  at  Glas 
gow,  128. 

University  towns,  the,  not  com 
pared,  124. 

VACCINATION,  263. 

Vaughan,  Mr.  Petty,  6,  9. 

Vaughan,  Mrs.,  44. 

Vauxhall  Gardens,  7. 

Venus  of  Milo,  271. 

Verses,  120,  169,  170,  171,  172,  242. 

Victor  Hugo,  285. 

Voltaire,  195,  257. 

Voyage,  5,  16,  20-26. 

Voysey,  Rev.  Mr.,  301. 

WALLOP,  Lady  Camilla,  131. 
Walpole,  Horace,  quoted,  51. 
Walshe,  Dr.  Walter  Hayle,  240,  303. 
War,  of  1812,  282 ;  of  secession,  282. 
Warwick,  9. 

Waterhouse,  Dr.  Benjamin,  240. 
Waterloo,  mound  at,  298. 
Watt  and  Watts,  242. 
Webb,  Col.,  owner  of  Newstead  Ab 
bey,  86. 


INDEX. 


329 


Wellington  on  battle  of  Waterloo, 

83. 

Wells  Cathedral,  285. 
Westbury,  white  horse  on  hillside, 

164. 
Westminster  Abbey,  6,  44;    Poeta' 

Corner,    89 ;     overcrowded,    91 ; 

visit  of  two  hours,  92 ;  holes  for 

playing  marbles,  92,  93;    life  in 

ami  about,  93. 

Westminster,  Duke  of,  31,  47. 
White  of  Selborne,  l.V.i.  Mi 
White,  Sir  W.  A.,  114. 
\Vhittier,  favorite  tree  of,  at  Dan- 

vers,  104. 

Wight,  Isle  of,  103,  105,  108. 
Will.-.  Oscar,  and  wife,  42. 
Willett,  Mr.  Henry,  26,  71,  137,  138, 

285. 

Willows,  292. 
Wilson,  Sir  Erasmus,  273. 
Wilton,  168;  pictures,  188;  sculp 


tures,  189;  maidens,  daisies,  and 
primroses,  189  ;  predominant 
memory,  189. 

Windsor,  8,  71 ;  the  castle,  72 ;  the 
park,  73. 

Winthrop,  Mr.,  50. 

Wolseley,  Lord,  66. 

Wolverton,  Lor.l,  17. 

Women  do  not  know  their  contem 
poraries,  66. 

Wordsworth,  76,  78,  285. 

Wreck  of  the  Medusa,  23. 

Wright,  Mr.  Aldis,  131. 

Wright,  Professor,  113. 

Wyman,  Dr.  Jeffries,  280. 

YEAR  1809,  birth  year  of  Gladstone, 

Tennyson,  Darwin,  66. 
York,  Archbishop  of,  81 ;  breakfast 

at,  125 ;  cathedral,  9,  125. 
Yorkshire,  9. 
Young,  Dr.  Thomas,  2, 


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Standard  and  Popular  Library  Books.  7 

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